Intelligence Report

Welcome
to the
Age of the
Art Industry
(The Art World Is Over)

Why Auction
Guarantees Have
Lost Their Luster

Forward-Thinking
Collectors on What
They Buy & Why

What You Need

to Know About the
African Contemporary
Art Market
Introduction

When artnet launched the artnet Magazine in 1995, it was only the second
online publication in the world (after Slate, which was later bought by Microsoft).
Our company had just become one of the internet’s first commercial users—but
it had already defined the products and services that we more or less continue to
offer today, all of which seek to level the playing field for galleries and collectors.
In the ensuing decades, the art world has transformed, with a ballooning
number of artists and a market that has become truly global. Meanwhile,
the tenets on which artnet was founded—to offer guidance and transparency
—are needed more than ever. It is no wonder that artnet’s resolve to consider
art quantitatively as well as qualitatively, which 30 years ago was considered
unacceptable, is no longer controversial at all.
Over time, the art market has come to understand that the artnet Price
Database benefits everyone, because a market can truly only grow if there
is enough credible information easily available to measure its performance.
And grow it has: Total worldwide auction sales in 2018 were $19.4 billion,
compared to $3.3 billion in 1989, an increase of almost 500 percent. The
total size of the art market, including gallery and online sales, is estimated
to be worth over $60 billion today.
The art market is far from perfect. Why are certain artists who make excep-
tional work not showing up meaningfully in these statistics? Has the money that
has been flowing into the market so confused us that we now see price as
the main determinant of quality? Or are we observing just a temporary splitting
of the field into various segments that need to be considered and evaluated
separately? For the moment, the relentless attention the mainstream press pays
to high prices has given the financial side of art collecting the lead in our collec-
tive understanding of events. But that can change. If we have learned anything
over the past 30 years, it is to expect surprises.

Sincerely,

Jacob Pabst, CEO

1
Editors’ Letter Table of Contents

4 38 80
Marketplace Why the Golden Age of How Hans Neuendorf
As you might glean from the cover, this report advances a thesis: that over the past • Total auction sales around the globe Auction Guarantees Is Changed the Art
30 years, the art world has evolved into an art industry. Once the modestly sized • Why the top of the market is shrinking
province of connoisseurs, passion-driven dealers, and hobbyist collectors, the art • Expert predictions for what’s ahead
Probably Over Business
business today exists as an interconnected global network dominated by multi- by Eileen Kinsella by Andrew Goldstein
billion-dollar corporations and swashbuckling, profit-minded investors who care
about numbers as much, if not more, than they care about the art itself.
6 These lucrative hedges were once the artnet’s founder recalls how he
financial instrument of choice for developed the first online auction
From one point of view, this market is a strange, chimerical amalgam of the What I’m Buying speculators and market manipulators, database and reveals why he is
luxury industry, the financial sector, and a high-class casino; seen another way, it
is a burgeoning engine of creativity and innovation that could yield a new Renais-
& Why but now they’ve lost their luster torn about the sweeping changes
it wrought
sance in art. As with art itself, the art market’s nature is in the eye of the beholder. Collectors dish on their latest
In this issue, we speak to a trio of collectors who touch on how the business side of obsessions and the works that got away 46
things has changed over the past three decades—for better and for worse.
Collecting Isn’t 90
We also dive deep into reams of data, which show that the market is now
slowing, with key indices coming down from their recent peaks. This report
14 What It Used to Be: Dive Into Some
outlines those areas of retrenchment in the marketplace and identifies where the The Best-Seller Lists A Roundtable Refreshing Market
alarm bells are ringing. It also shows where opportunities are developing, both
through the data and via an in-depth survey of the increasingly exciting market for
The top 10 lots of 2019 to date in every
by Cristina Ruiz
Data
major category
African contemporary art. As the current reshuffling continues, it is likely that the by Julia Halperin
Dimitri Daskalopoulos, Paul Ettlinger,
winners and losers with be spread unevenly around the globe, in ways that mirror
and Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo We pull together exclusive data about
Andrew Goldstein
broader macroeconomic trends. 26 discuss how the business of collecting the market’s performance in 2019
Because this fall is artnet’s 30th anniversary, our report also takes a look at
Editor-in-Chief
artnet News
@AndrwGoldstein how the company’s pioneering Price Database shaped the art field and helped ac-
How the Art World has evolved since 1989 to date, gathered from the artnet Price
Database, and speak to experts about
celerate its headlong growth. We spoke to Hans Neuendorf, the founder of artnet, Became (Sniff) what it all means
about the obstacles he and the company overcame as it became the first-ever art
the Art Industry 54
business to go online—and about his ambivalence regarding the impact that access
to transparent pricing has had on the field he entered as an idealistic art dealer in by Tim Schneider
Why Is Everyone 94
the 1960s.
As artnet celebrates its 30th anniversary,
Talking About the Who Are Today’s
Today, 30 years into the history of artnet, and now in the midst of what looks
like the beginnings of a market correction, it is clear that we remain in the infancy
we use data to tell the story of how the African Art Market? Most Bankable
market has transformed—radically—
of the art industry—with all the positive and negative connotations that word, by Rebecca Anne Proctor
which conjures a smoke-belching factory, conveys. Where will things go? See you
over the past three decades Artists?
We break down the rising stars, most
in 30 years. See the 10 best-selling artists
important players, and everything else
Julia Halperin in each genre
Executive Editor you need to know about the buzzing
artnet News
@juliahalperin Andrew Goldstein & Julia Halperin scenes spread across six African cities

2 3
Marketplace
By the $9.1 billion
Numbers The total amount of money spent on fine art, decorative art, and design

in the first six months of 2019—down 13.5 percent from the

equivalent period one year ago. “There’s a lack of robustness in the market,”

$46,281 says Michael Plummer, the cofounder of investment firm Artvest.

The average price of an artwork

“THE GLOBAL MARKET

The biggest takeaways from the market’s sold at auction in the first half

of 2019—28 percent less than in $3 billion IS TRACKING THE

performance so far this year—and insider tips the equivalent period last year,
UPS AND DOWNS OF THE

GLOBAL ECONOMY.”

on how to get ahead when the average price hit $61,699.

What happened? For the first time

The total amount of money spent on postwar and contempo-

rary art at auction in the first half of 2019, down 6 percent

Benjamin Mandel,
in several years, the number from the same period in 2018. (For perspective, this sum
global strategist,
of works sold at auction is going is $280,000 less than the luxury-goods company Burberry
J.P. Morgan
up while total sales are going earned in the same period.)
Asset Management
down. There are simply fewer

high-priced outliers to drive up

the average price. In the global auction market, Britain’s loss may be
KAWS
France’s gain. The uncertainty created by Brexit pushed

the U.K. market to its lowest level in more than six years.
$70.6 million
By contrast, France’s auction sales grew 13 percent in vs.
-35% the first half of 2019 after three straight years of contrac-

tion. The French auction market remains much smaller

Jean-Michel
Basquiat
The decline in the average price of
than the U.K.’s, with $346.5 million in sales compared

with $1.4 billion in Britain. But experts suspect that the

$65.6 million
a work of Modern and Impressionist
U.K.’s market share will tumble even further as a no-deal
art sold at auction in the first half

The Air Is Getting Thin at the Top of 2019 compared with the equiva-
Brexit looms. “That downward trend is here to stay,”

says Michael Plummer of Artvest. Moving forward,

In a shift few could have seen coming

a year ago, the 45-year-old Brook-

lent period last year—a larger drop
consignors who would have sold in London will be more lyn-based artist KAWS has outsold
than for any other genre.
Anyone who has attended a marquee art auction Some suggest this drop might simply represent likely to sell privately or send smaller-ticket items Jean-Michel Basquiat, the far more

in New York in recent years knows that few people in a return to business as usual after a remarkably to auction in France and pricey lots to New York. established graffiti artist turned

attendance bother to look up from their phones until strong first half of 2018, when Christie’s sale of the art-market phenomenon, for the first

18%
a work passes the $10 million mark. But such high Rockefeller estate generated more than $800 Growth Rates for Total Auction Sales by Country
Growth Rate for Total Auction Sales in the First Half of 2019
time. A hefty 480 KAWS works hit the
January–June, 2019
prices may not be routine for much longer. After years million alone, and when wealthy Americans were market in the first six months of 2019,

of growth, the uppermost echelon of the market now riding high on news of the passage of the Trump compared with just 57 works by Basquiat.

appears to be stalling. Administration’s tax cuts. The amount total auction sales in That means the average Basquiat work

Total auction sales of works over $10 million But the fact remains that in the first half of the United States plunged in the remains far more expensive than the
USA U.K. France Germany
shrunk by 35 percent in the first six months of this 2019, the $10 million-and-up segment dropped first half of the year compared with -18% -24% 13% 8%
average KAWS. But the fact remains

year compared to the first half of 2018. The falloff was to its lowest point since the market’s last dip in 2016. the first six months of 2018. Still, that buyers shelled out around $5 mil-

steepest for the Impressionist and Modern category, “There is a disproportionate amount of caution that the country remains the world’s lion more in the first half of the year

where sales in the uppermost bracket plummeted is affecting the high end of the market,” says largest market, with $2.9 billion for work by the artist born Brian Don-

by 40 percent. In the postwar and contemporary Benjamin Mandel, a global strategist at J.P. Morgan worth of art sold during the period. China Italy Switzerland Japan nelly than they did for work by Basquiat.
-11% -4% -5% -20%
sector, they fell 20 percent. Asset Management. And that is something.

4 5
Marketplace

What Dean Valentine

I’m Buying
Former TV executive and cofounder
Felix Art Fair
Los Angeles

& Why It’s hard to think of

contemporary art
in the past 20 to 30
years without putting
L.A. at the forefront.

What was your first Where do you buy art What is the most impracti-
acquisition? most frequently? cal work of art you own?
A piece by a Russian émigré In Los Angeles. It’s hard to A four-walled room—seven
artist, Yuri Kuper, that think of contemporary art feet high, five feet wide, and
looked as if Cy Twombly in the past 20 to 30 years eight feet long—by German
found a blackboard in the without putting L.A. at the artist Gregor Schneider. It’s
trash and decided to scrawl forefront. I feel very lucky bigger than my bathroom.
on it. It was about $6,500, that I’ve been here during
which seemed like an abso- all this. What work do you wish
lutely ridiculous amount of you had bought when you
money at the time. Do you have any artwork had the chance?
in your bathroom? A Warhol Marilyn gold
What was your most In the guest bathroom, tondo painting. I was just
recent acquisition? there’s a beautiful Surrealist a medium-level employee
A painting by a young African drawing from the 1970s at a [Hollywood] studio,
American artist named Bran- by E’wao Kagoshima. It and I couldn’t afford it.
don Landers. It’s a tribute to had to be out of the light,
[murdered Compton rapper and it’s a dark bathroom, If you could steal one work
Top collectors share and entrepreneur] Nipsey so it’s perfect. of art without getting

their strategies Hussle. I’m not necessarily a

Nipsey Hussle fan, but I am
caught, what would it be?
The Raft of the Medusa
(and obsessions) by Tim Schneider a Brandon Landers fan. by Géricault.

6 7
Marketplace

What I’m What work do you have

hanging above your sofa?
it in London briefly before
we opened a restaurant, but
Dealers who go to Art
Buying & Why A Tomoo Gokita canvas now it’s in storage. Basel in Basel will always
work, the two Samson
Young works I recently What work do you wish
bring their “A” game.
bought, and also a collage you had bought when you
by Shinro Ohtake, a Japa- had the chance?
nese contemporary artist I probably had opportunities
in his 60s. to acquire very high-quality
Gutai works a few years
What is the most ago, and I just wasn’t paying
impractical work of art enough attention.

Alan Lo you own? What makes

it so challenging?
Nadim Abbas’s Human
If you could steal one work
of art without getting
Rhinovirus 14. It consists caught, what would it be?
Cofounder of several industrial fans The On Kawara room

Classified Group of Restaurants that blow beach balls into

the air to interact with a
at Dia:Beacon.

Hong Kong video projection of enlarged

virus imagery. We showed Nadim Abbas, Human Rhinovirus 14
(2016) at Duddell’s London

What was your What are you hoping Where do you buy art
first acquisition? to add to your collection most frequently?
A Wang Guangyi sculpture this year? Art fairs. You can do it any day
at Christie’s in 2008—way Maybe Cecily Brown, of the year at a gallery, but fairs
before all the big interna- maybe Ed Ruscha. I went do guarantee a [high] level of
tional dealers came to town. to see the Sanya Kan- quality. Dealers who go to Art
tarovsky show at Luhring Basel in Basel will always bring
What was your most Augustine in New York, their “A” game.
recent acquisition? which was really nice.
Two small works on paper So maybe him. Is there a piece you regret
by Samson Young, a Hong purchasing? If so, why?
Kong-based artist who What is the most It was a work by a then-very-
focuses on sound. I don’t expensive work of art hot, emerging artist—according
have a museum, so it’s a that you own? to the gallery—three or four
little difficult to buy his A Sterling Ruby collage- years ago. I wasn’t applying
installations. He finally on-canvas work from a great amount of discipline
made some work that, size- his “BC” series from 2012. in terms of how I buy. I tend
wise, was manageable for It was maybe a quarter to be a bit of an impulse
a domestic situation. million U.S. dollars. purchaser. It doesn’t help when
you’re under pressure at a fair
or auction house and you have
about 10 minutes to decide.

8 9
Marketplace

Do you have any artwork powder room, we have What is the most What work do you wish you
What I’m in your bathroom? EJ Hill and Texas Isaiah’s impractical work of art had bought when you had
Buying & Why In one powder room, Victory Laps (Marie Fegan you own? What makes the chance?
we have Marilyn Minter’s Preschool) (2018), a photo- it so challenging? Larry Bell’s earlier glass cubes.
Trump Plaque (2017), which graph that was part of EJ Lisa Oppenheim’s Smoke
is a limited-edition com- Hill’s performance at the (2013), a two-channel installa- If you could steal one
memoration of Donald Hammer Museum’s biennial tion that was originally shown work of art without getting
Trump’s infamous words “Made in L.A.” in 2017. on two 50-foot-wide screens caught, what would it be?
on Access Hollywood, to raise at MASS MoCA. One of Ad Reinhardt’s black,
funds for Downtown for 60-inch-square abstract
Democracy. In the second paintings from the 1960s.

Mihail Lari
Chair, board of overseers
Hammer Museum
Los Angeles

What was the first acquisi- What are you hoping Is there a work you regret
tion you and your husband, to add to your collection purchasing? If so, why?
Scott Murray, made? this year? Willem de Kooning’s
Our first serious acquisition Louise Lawler and Pae Landing Place (1970–71).
was Byron Kim’s Permanent White, as well as additional It is one of the handful of
Painting 7 (2004). We paid works by Analia Saban, Erin works we bought because
$21,700 for it in 2004. Shirreff, Liz Deschenes, of who it was by rather than
and eight more panels for because it was great and
What was your most our version of Byron Kim’s fit our collection.
recent acquisition? Synecdoche (1991).
Glenn Ligon’s Untitled What work do you have
(America) (2018), which is What is the most expen- hanging above your sofa?
the newest version of his sive work of art that you Wolfgang Tillmans’s Greif-
iconic America, in red neon. own? bar 41 (2015), which is a
As the world is changing Ligon’s Untitled (America). unique, and especially great,
drastically, and even regress- large abstract photograph
ing, we are increasingly Where do you buy art from his “Freischwimmer/
drawn to works that are most frequently? Greifbar” series. Clockwise from top:
Glenn Ligon, Untitled
more political. Primarily from L.A. or (America) (2018); EJ
Hill and Texas Isaiah,
New York galleries, typically Victory Laps (Marie
Fegan Preschool)
after seeing a show. (2018); Willem de
Kooning, Landing
Place (1970–71)

10 11
Marketplace

What I’m
Buying & Why

What is the most

Carole Server impractical work

of art you own?
A Kaari Upson three-
door installation piece…
Vice chair of the board of trustees We were told when we

Bronx Museum of the Arts bought it that, in one’s home,

the work could be displayed
New York in a smaller grouping.
However, if you loan it for
public viewing, the artist
wants all three doors shown
What was the first acquisi- What is the most expensive What work do you have together. We live in an
tion you and your husband, work of art that you own? hanging above your sofa? apartment, so installing
Oliver Frankel, made? I’d prefer not to answer that. Our sofa is freestanding, something that requires that
A number of works at Art but currently on the main amount of space can really
Basel: Hugo McCloud, Where do you buy art wall of our living room, we impact a room. We are
Arjan Martins, and Richard most frequently? are living with an amazing going to try to put up the
Aldrich. We were very When we first started, we Dana Schutz painting. entire installation this fall.
excited about a Pipilotti bought almost all our work
Rist video work. It does not at fairs. While we still buy Do you have any artwork Which artists do you wish
require a video room or a at art fairs, now we’re buying in your bathroom? you had collected when
private museum to display. more from gallery shows. We have a work by Carol you had the chance?
It’s self-contained in a sculp- Bennett that we bought John Currin and
tural screen, and a 30-minute very early on. It’s hanging Derrick Adams.
video loop plays behind the across from the mirrors,
sculpture. Very cool. and I enjoy looking at it If you could steal one
when I’m getting dressed. work of art without getting
caught, what would it be?
A big Nicole Eisenman
painting. We have Nicole
in the collection, but we
Artwork, from top: Arjan Martins,
Entre Tempos Distópicos (2019); only have small works. I lust
Dana Schutz, Carpool (2016); Richard
Aldrich, Celestial Painting (2018–19) after a substantial painting.

12 13
Marketplace

The Best-Seller Lists 1

Artist

Adrian Ghenie
Life

b. 1977
Title

Duchamp’s Funeral I
Date

2009
Sale Price

$5,648,357

Ultra-Contemporary
2 Jonas Wood b. 1977 Japanese Garden 3 2019 $4,928,500

3 Adrian Ghenie b. 1977 The Collector 4 2009 $3,486,193

4 Jonas Wood b. 1977 M.S.F. Fish Pot #5 2015 $3,375,000

5 Dana Schutz b. 1976 Civil Planning 2004 $2,420,000

6 Jia Aili b. 1979 The Wasteland 2007 $2,309,182

7 Adrian Ghenie b. 1977 Babe in the Woods 2008 $2,295,000

8 Jonas Wood b. 1977 Diet 7Up Frimkess Pot 2016 $1,998,537

9 Hao Liang b. 1983 An Anecdote From the Grove 2011 $1,933,220

10 Jonas Wood b. 1977 The Speller 2007 $1,700,000

The top 10 lots This list—which covers artists born after 1974
in each major —suggests a division in the ultra-contemporary
category— market. One segment is characterized by
at a glance speculators looking to make a quick dollar off Adrian Ghenie Jonas Wood Dana Schutz
relatively untested artists. Some would say that Duchamp’s Funeral I Japanese Garden 3 Civil Planning
Some in the trade believe This painting was new Sometimes, you don’t have
the Chinese artist Hao Liang, who had his first Ghenie’s lofty prices are to market and consigned to look beyond the surface
solo New York gallery show just last year (at overdue for a tumble. “It’s directly by the artist to to understand a record
a bubble,” art advisor Todd benefit the organization price. This riotously colored
Gagosian), and Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie Levin says. But the Roma- Global Wildlife Conserva- dreamscape by the highly
are among those artists. nian artist continues to tion. The nonprofit teamed regarded artist, which was
perform well at auction. up with Rainforest Trust consigned by the foundation
But this list also includes artists who built This painting made a tidy to match 400 percent of the of the late management
a solid foundation before having their prices return for the consignor, hammer price, generating consultant David Teiger, is
who bought it at Sotheby’s a hefty total that will be extremely large—14 by 9.5
boosted to the next level. Experts say the strong in 2014 for $1.6 million. used to conserve a 600,000- feet—and conventionally
performance of works by Dana Schutz and Jonas acre reserve of South Ameri- beautiful, while much of
can rainforest. It also set the artist’s work can veer
Wood, for example, is well-earned. From top: Jonas Wood, Japanese a record for Wood’s work into the grotesque. On the
Regardless of which segment of the market Garden 3 (2019); Dana Schutz, Civil
Planning (2004) at auction. primary market, Schutz’s
paintings sell for closer to
you look at, one thing is for sure: figurative paint- $400,000, sources say.
ing is now the dominant trend. None of the works
that cracked the top 10 this season were abstract,
a style that not so long ago reigned supreme.
14 15
Marketplace  The Best-Seller Lists

Contemporary 1
Artist

Jeff Koons

2 KAWS
Life

b. 1955

b. 1974
Title

Rabbit

The KAWS Album

Date

1986

2005
Sale Price

$91,075,000

$14,773,492

3 Christopher Wool b. 1955 Untitled 1990 $14,000,000

4 Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960–1988 Apex 1986 $10,812,024

5 Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960–1988 Sabado por la Noche (Saturday Night) 1984 $10,656,640

6 Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960–1988 Self-Portrait 1983 $9,500,000

7 Mark Bradford b. 1961 Helter Skelter II 2007 $8,475,250

8 Albert Oehlen b. 1954 Selbstportrait mit Leeren Händen 1998 $7,907,039

“An iconic work that’s larger than life,” is how the 9 Kerry James Marshall b. 1955 Untitled (Painter) 2008 $7,325,800

art advisor Wendy Cromwell describes Jeff Koons’s 10 Jenny Saville b. 1970 Juncture 1994 $7,151,380

Rabbit. “It’s worth whatever someone is going to

pay for it.”
This past May, that someone—believed
From top: Jeff Koons, Rabbit (1986);
to be hedge funder Steve Cohen—was willing to Jeff Koons KAWS Mark Bradford Jenny Saville
KAWS, The KAWS Album (2005)
pay $91.1 million. The sculpture, consigned by Rabbit The KAWS Album Helter Skelter II Juncture
According to multiple sourc- If you thought KAWS was Bidding was thin for this Why has Saville, who ini-
the estate of the late magazine publisher S.I. es, hedge-fund billionaire just a passing trend, think picture, which sold to its tially rose to prominence in
Newhouse Jr., set a record for a work by a living Steve Cohen beat out under- again. His satirical twist on guarantor for a hammer the ‘90s alongside the Young
bidder Mitchell Rales, the the album cover with the price just shy of its low es- British Artists, recently
artist at auction, beating the $90.3 million paid industrialist behind Mary- Simpsons aping Sgt. Pepper’s timate. “A lot of people who become one of the most
for David Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool land’s Glenstone museum, to Lonely Hearts Club Band wanted to make a big splash successful living female
take home this pricey bunny. brought nearly 15 times its on Bradford have done artists at auction? Collectors
With Two Figures) last year. high estimate, and more it,” notes art advisor Todd respond to her fleshy style
The spring season also saw some newly than quintupled his previ- Levin. This painting was of painting, which continues
ous auction record of $2.7 made even more challenging in the tradition of Lucian
anointed market darlings. “Collectors’ taste is million. It was sold as part by its gargantuan size: 35 by Freud. Furthermore, while
changing in the contemporary market,” says of the personal collection 13 feet. Only a handful of most of the YBAs were
of Japanese streetwear en- people have space to accom- sculptors, “she’s the only
Suzanne Gyorgy, Citi Private Bank’s global head trepreneur Tomoaki Nagao, modate such a big work— one who made paintings
of art advisory and finance. Big spenders are more better known as NIGO. and many of them probably with a capital P,” Cromwell
own a nice Bradford already. notes. This painting sold
open to work by women and artists of color, she in 2009 for $665,671—
notes, as well as artists who have near-celebrity meaning it generated a
nearly 1,000 percent return
public appeal but have been regarded with cyni- for the consignor.
cism by the art world­—like KAWS.
16 17
Marketplace  The Best-Seller Lists

Postwar 1
Artist

Robert Rauschenberg

2 Andy Warhol
Life

1925–2008

1928–1987
Title

Buffalo II

Double Elvis [Ferus Type]

Date

1964

1963
Sale Price

$88,805,000

$53,000,000

3 David Hockney b. 1937 Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott 1969 $49,521,696

4 Louise Bourgeois 1911–2010 Spider 1996 $32,055,000

5 Roy Lichtenstein 1923–1997 Kiss III 1962 $31,135,000

6 Frank Stella b. 1936 Point of Pines 1959 $28,082,500

7 Gerhard Richter b. 1932 Jet Fighter 1963 $20,349,142

8 Andy Warhol 1928–1987 Liz [Early Colored Liz] 1963 $19,343,000

9 Joan Mitchell 1925–1992 Hans 1981 $12,192,500

10 David Hockney b. 1937 Day Pool With Three Blues (Paper Pool 7) 1978 $10,490,000

Warhol is still winning the war for market domi-

nance: his works made a combined $150.3 million
at auction in the first half of 2019, more than any David Hockney Louise Bourgeois Frank Stella Gerhard Richter
other artist in the sector. But he lost the battle Henry Geldzahler Spider Point of Pines Jet Fighter
and Christopher Scott The art market usually This work set an auction This painting made a return
From top: Robert Rauschenberg,
for the season’s top lot. That distinction goes to Other than David Hockney’s prefers the conventionally record for Stella—but his flight to the auction block
Buffalo II (1964); Louise Bourgeois,
Spider (1996) Robert Rauschenberg, whose Buffalo II shattered pool pictures, like the one attractive to the creepy— paintings have fetched after a botched 2016 deal
that sold for $90.3 million but not in the case of Louise considerably higher sums in which its guarantor—
his previous auction record by nearly a factor of last fall, his double portraits Bourgeois. Nine of her top on the private market. Even Chinese businessman Zhang
five. There are a number of reasons it performed are the most sought-after 10 auction results (including this work was shopped Chang—failed to make good
part of his oeuvre. This this one, a record) are for privately for more money on his advance bid. Phillips
so well: it is from a particularly desirable period, painting—of Hockney’s close bronze spider sculptures. before coming to auction, was stuck with the work, for
the same year the artist won the Golden Lion friend legendary former Met “For people building their sources say. which it had promised to pay
curator Henry Geldzahler, own sculpture parks, it’s the late Microsoft cofounder
at the 1964 Venice Biennale; it is filled with classic and Geldzahler’s then-boy- a critical requirement,” one Paul Allen $24 million. With
American iconography, from the Coca-Cola logo friend—came from the estate dealer says. “This is the going this sale, it managed to cover
of luxury-travel executive rate for one of that scale.” some—though not all—of
to JFK; and it hadn’t been on the market for Barney Ebsworth. Christie’s its losses.
50 years. wisely opted to sell it four
months later than most of
Among those cracking the top 10 sales the Ebsworth collection so
in the sector were, notably, two female artists as not to compete directly
with Portrait of an Artist
(Louise Bourgeois and Joan Mitchell), which (Pool With Two Figures).
remains a rarity.
18 19
Marketplace  The Best-Seller Lists

Photographs 1
Artist

Helmut Newton

2 El Lissitzky
Life

1920–2004

1890–1941
Title

Sie Kommen, Paris (Dressed and Naked)

Self-Portrait (The Constructor)

Date

1981

1924
Sale Price

$1,820,000

$1,245,562

3 Gilbert & George b. 1943 & 1942 Bugger 1977 $1,008,244

4 Cindy Sherman b. 1954 Untitled Film Still #21 1978 $808,147

5 Edward Weston 1886–1958 Circus Tent 1924 $788,000

6 Tina Modotti 1896–1942 Telephone Wires, Mexico 1925 $692,000

7 Edward Weston 1886–1958 Shell (Nautilus) 1928 $677,515

8 Andreas Gursky b. 1955 May Day V 2006 $648,500

9 Richard Avedon 1923–2004 Dovima with Elephants, Evening Dress by 1955 $615,000
Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, 1955

10 Thomas Struth b. 1954 Mailänder Dom (innen), Mailand 1998 $551,282

Helmut Newton Cindy Sherman Andreas Gursky

Sie Kommen, Paris Untitled Film Still #21 May Day V
(Dressed and Naked) Sherman’s auction perfor- If you are a Gursky fan,
This work first appeared mance has been spotty now is a good time to buy.
as a two-page spread in the lately. The only two other In the early 2010s, major
French edition of Vogue film stills to hit the block urban scenes like this one
in 1981. Its sale is one of this year went unsold, while routinely brought in more

From top: Cindy Sherman, Untitled

The top of the photography market has been soft a number of strong recent another edition of this same than $1 million. But the
auction results for work by work sold last summer for German artist has not made
Film Still #21 (1978); Helmut New-
ton, Sie Kommen, Paris (Dressed
and Naked) (1981)
for a couple of years—which could signal a buying artists, like Irving Penn and $1.3 million—considerably a seven-figure price at auc-
opportunity for work by established names like Richard Avedon, who once more than this one made. tion since November 2017.
were referred to (somewhat
Cindy Sherman and Andreas Gursky. dismissively) as “fashion
In the first half of this year, no photograph photographers.” “I don’t care
if you call it fashion or fine
passed the $2 million mark at auction, and only art, a great artwork is a great
three works sold for more than $1 million. “It used artwork,” Levin says.

to be you couldn’t look at a Gursky or a [Thomas]

Struth without hitting seven figures,” says the art
advisor Todd Levin. “Now it has to be a great im-
age on a good day.”
20 21
Marketplace  The Best-Seller Lists

Impressionist 1
Artist

Claude Monet
Life

1840–1926
Title

Meules
Date

1891
Sale Price

$110,747,000

& Modern
2 Paul Cézanne 1839–1906 Bouilloire et fruits 1888–1890 $59,295,000

3 Pablo Picasso 1881–1973 Femme au chien 1962 $54,936,000

4 Francis Bacon 1909–1992 Study for a Head 1952 $50,380,000

5 Mark Rothko 1903–1970 Untitled 1960 $50,095,250

6 Vincent van Gogh 1853–1890 Arbres dans le jardin de l’asile 1889 $40,000,000

7 Claude Monet 1840–1926 Le Palais Ducal 1908 $36,488,206

8 Amedeo Modigliani 1884–1920 Tête 1911–1912 $34,325,000

9 Claude Monet 1840–1926 Nymphéas 1908 $29,967,956

10 Paul Cézanne 1839–1906 Nature morte de pêches et poires 1885–1887 $28,237,781

Picasso has long dominated the Impressionist

and Modern market, generating more money at
auction than any other artist in the sector. But
Monet is nipping at his heels this season, thanks Pablo Picasso Francis Bacon Mark Rothko
in large part to Meules, a luminous “Haystack” Femme au chien Study for a Head Untitled
This was a strong price for Screaming popes are incred- This painting was sold—
painting that had been in the same private a painting of this period— ibly rare, and this one was to some controversy—by
collection since 1986, when it made $2.5 million especially since, as one snapped up on behalf of a the San Francisco Museum
dealer noted, it is not an client by the London-based of Modern Art, which is
at Christie’s. This time around, it sold for 44 “aggressively erotic picture,” dealership Eykyn Maclean. using the proceeds to
times that sum. but rather the equivalent diversify its collection.
of easy listening for Picasso. Although there is extreme-
Sources say this work—the best example of “It was bought for a combi- ly strong demand for great
the “Haystack” series left in private hands—was nation of being a commodity Rothkos, whose rectangles
and a highly salable object,” seem to float like clouds
purchased by German software billionaire Hasso the dealer says. within the picture plane,
Plattner. The underbidder, we hear, was hedge- “this was not a great one,”
one dealer said. “Otherwise
fund manager Kenneth Griffin. they wouldn’t have been
In the Imp-Mod sector, “great things will selling it.”

perform exceptionally well,” while the rest remains

relatively stable, according to art advisor Todd
From top: Claude Monet, Meules
Levin. “It’s how you want a market to operate—
(1891); Francis Bacon, Study for
a Head (1952) no bubble and no retreat.”
22 23
Marketplace  The Best-Seller Lists

Old Masters 1
Artist

Jan Sanders van Hemessen

Life

1500–1566
Title

Double Portrait of a Husband and Wife,

Half-Length, Seated at a Table, Playing Tables
Date

1532
Sale Price

$10,036,000

2 Peter Paul Rubens 1577–1640 Nude Study of a Young Man With Raised Arms 1788 $8,202,000

3 Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun 1755–1842 Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan, 1629 $7,185,900
Full-length, Holding His Sword in a Landscape

4 Juan van der Hamen y León 1596–1632 Peaches, Pears, Plums, Peas and Cherries $6,517,500

in Wicker Baskets

5 Annibale Carracci 1560–1609 The Madonna and Child with Saint Lucy $6,063,500
and the Young Saint John the Baptist

6 Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael 1566–1638 A Banquet of the Gods 1622–1623 $5,944,000

7 Jan van de Cappelle 1624–1679

A Shipping Scene on a Calm Sea, With a Number
of Vessels and Figures, and a Jetty on the Left $4,815,000

8 Lorenzo Monaco 1370–1425 The Prophet Isaiah $3,615,000

9 Guido Reni 1575–1642 Toilette der Venus $3,536,100

10 Orazio Gentileschi 1562–1647 The Fall of the Rebel Angels $3,255,000

From top: Élisabeth Louise Vigée
Le Brun, Portrait of Muhammad
Dervish Khan, Full-Length Holding
His Sword in a Landscape (1629);
Juan van der Hamen y León, Peach-
More than any other sector, the Old Master
Jan Sanders van Hemessen Peter Paul Rubens Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
es, Pears, Plums, Peas and Cherries
in Wicker Baskets market is driven by supply. But it has also begun Double Portrait of a Nude Study of a Young Portrait of Muhammad
to expand its stock by reevaluating previously over- Husband and Wife, Man With Raised Arms Dervish Khan, Full-Length,
Half-Length, Seated at This work, which sold for Holding His Sword in
looked female artists (who, conveniently enough, a Table, Playing Tables more than twice its $3.5 a Landscape
are less likely to have already had their best works This lot came from an million high estimate, set a This monumental portrait
unlikely consignor: the artist record for a Rubens drawing. of an Indian ambassador
hoovered up by museums). Frank Stella, who bought Since the 19th century, to France smashed the
This subset of the market gained publicity— it at auction in the 1980s the work had been in the artist’s previous $1.5 million
and had it in his bedroom collection of the family record, set in 2017. It also
and interest from a broader audience—thanks for more than 30 years. of King William II of the established a record for any
to an unlikely booster: Spice Girl turned fashion Looking through the auction Netherlands, who was work by a female artist from
catalogue at the time, he criticized for not offering before the Modern era.
designer Victoria Beckham, who promoted 21 was mesmerized by the Dutch institutions the
works by 14 female artists, including the Vigée scene, which captures a chance to buy it before
husband and wife playing sending it to Sotheby’s.
Le Brun portrait at left, in the January Old Master tables, a variant on back- The drawing is one of
sales at Sotheby’s in New York. The group of gammon. “I knew the differ- a small number of survi-
ence between that painting ving studies for Rubens’s
pictures realized $14.6 million, just overshooting and the others,” he recalled. famous altarpiece, The
its pre-sale high estimate of $13.2 million. Raising of the Cross.

24 25
How the
The date on the New York Times in your hands is Septem-
ber 21, 1989. You’re on the subway home, trying to read
the cover story about Mikhail Gorbachev purging the
USSR’s Politburo, but Mayor Ed Koch’s plan to air-condition

Art World
every train in New York hasn’t reached the one you’re on,
and the heat is oppressive. Besides, you’re too anxious that
the big deal you’re trying to close for your auction house
may just blow up in your face.

Became
There’s a new collector in Tokyo you need to call
after tonight’s episode of Cheers ends. The fax he sent
you at the end of his workday came through as nothing
more than a smear of black ink, so it’s still unclear if his
financials actually check out. He says he’s in real estate

the Art
(naturally), and the way the Japanese market has been
climbing for the past few years, there’s no telling how
much he could spend in November if he’s serious. A single
Van Gogh almost hit $54 million less than two years ago,

Industry
and the Impressionist market has stayed so volcanic since
then that you’re starting to dream the record could be
broken again soon.
Problem is, you couldn’t find the collector’s card in
by Tim Schneider your Rolodex today. Your assistant is driving to Florida,
so you won’t be able to ask where it might have gone until
she calls you from a motel room to check in tomorrow
morning. Too bad those new “mobile phones” Motorola
just released cost $3,000. Then again, holding a wireless
electronic device up to your ear all day probably gives
you cancer or psychosis, so the whole product line might
be dead in a year or two.
Speaking of psychosis, you wonder if Leo Castelli
is losing his mind. At lunch today, you finally stopped
by 65 Thompson Street in SoHo, where a few months
back he started up a partnership with that 40-something
L.A. shark Larry Gagosian. As if fighting with the other
auction houses didn’t make your life difficult enough,
Gagosian has been running around for the past few years
acting like dealers have some kind of God-given right to
compete in the resale market. What does he think, auction
houses are going to start putting on exhibitions and
offering works by living artists? Doesn’t he understand
there’s a particular way of doing things in this business?
Is the whole art world as we know it breaking down?

Today’s art business looks

nothing like it did 30 years ago.
26 27
Art Market Evolution

Fast-forward 30 years from this hypothetical day in the life mortality, intimacy, imperfection, and transience. From Fine-Art Auction Sales by Category, 1988
and it’s clear that, in a way, the art world as it existed back then
Myth 1: Contemporary Art Robert Gober and Marlene Dumas to Rirkrit Tiravanija
really did break down over the ensuing decades. That clubby Will Never Be Popular and Elizabeth Peyton, these artists “became the critical
handshake business where everybody knew your name has names in art, and often in collecting, in the decades that
been replaced by a multibillion-dollar international industry. It has been said that “we are what we repeatedly do.” followed,” says Schwartzman.
Today, that industry still has plenty of growing up to do, And based on the history of artnet Price Database searches, As the number of wealthy individuals around the
but the refinement process has begun. Consider that, in 1988, we have become an industry ravenous for artists who started world grew from the late ‘90s into the 2000s, demand for
the artnet Price Database tracked only 18 auction houses out in graffiti, vinyl toys, and (possibly staged) documenta- artworks as symbols of refinement and success drastically
and about 8,300 artists. Over the next 24 years, those figures ries. The artists who saw the greatest increase in interested increased—and contemporary art had inherent advantag-
Fine-Art Auction Sales by Category, 2018
skyrocketed: By 2012, there were 632 auction houses and users over the past 15 years include KAWS (#1), Mr. Brain- es over older art among all but the most moneyed of this
90,275 artists. But, like any mature industry, it is now entering wash (#6), and Banksy (#7). ascendant class. That’s because, while the very top of the
a period of consolidation after decades of expansion. Last The rise of street art would no doubt be jarring to the market became increasingly sophisticated about which
year, artnet recorded only 534 houses (a drop of around 16 dealers and collectors who were battling over Van Goghs pieces across different genres were worth significant price
percent from the high-water mark) and 71,621 artists (down in the late 1980s—as would the realization that what is driv- premiums, the rank-and-file rich gravitated to the next
25 percent from the peak). ing the market is the ascent of young art in general. Most best and most available thing. And works by living (or
Still, the scale and contours of today’s art world would of the artists occupying this list’s upper reaches—40 of the recently dead) artists vastly outnumbered the classics.
have been largely inconceivable to dealers, auction-house top 50 names—were born in 1945 or later. From gallery dinners and studio visits to art-fair
professionals, and collectors 30 years ago. Tastes have “The attention contemporary art gets today is what parties and biennials, the social incentives also heavily Before long, this expansion became a virtuous cycle.
changed; non-Western economies have emerged as essential we were always hoping for,” says Thaddaeus Ropac, whose favored the contemporary, particularly as the amount of The more contemporary art bubbled over into the celebrity
forces; and what was once a quaint cottage industry has five international galleries grew from a single location in money flooding into the art business made these events and mass-culture spheres, the more global brands were keen
become surprisingly corporate. Salzburg opened in 1983. “It was once a small group of fol- more lavish and exclusive. This revenue boost translated into to partner with artists, and the more popular the artists
How was this transformation possible? Because three lowers—we were happy with whatever number of visitors we bigger budgets, greater ambition, and more robust marketing became. Audiences can now encounter the work of fine
supposed truisms about the art market in the late 1980s have got; we were happy about any small sale. But expectations for successful galleries and artists. artists in Jay Z videos, on the cover of Vogue, on Louis Vuit-
proved to be totally, completely wrong. Here, we explore the today are on a totally different level.” ton handbags and Nike sneakers, in tequila ad campaigns,
art-world myths that the rise of the art industry shattered. This trend toward the new is unmistakable in the data. For Auction Houses With Sales in the artnet Price Database and in a thousand other venues far more visible than the
instance, of the 150 artists with the greatest increase in interest- 1988–2018 traditional art context—and museums reap the benefits
ed users since 2005, only one does not qualify as either postwar of this enlarged viewership.
(which covers artists artists born between 1911 and 1944) Consider the fact that the Broad, the privately funded
or contemporary (artists born after 1945): the abstract color Los Angeles museum opened in 2015 by Eli and Edythe
theorist Josef Albers (1888–1976). And he ranks seventy-third. Broad, two of the most prominent collectors in the emerging
From today’s vantage point, it seems almost unbelievable class of contemporary mega-buyers, became one of the 15

There was that an era existed when contemporary work—which by its

nature mirrors the issues and spirit of its age—did not enjoy
most-attended American museums in its first year and has
since grown its audience by 12 to 15 percent annually.

“no market for such broad popularity. But Allan Schwartzman, chairman of
Sotheby’s Fine Art Division, recalls that there was “no market
But does a huge gain in interest in contemporary art
correlate to a major rise in sales? Inflation-adjusted auction

contemporary for contemporary art” as recently as the late 1970s.

That all changed in the big-money 1980s, a decade
Artists in the artnet Price Database
1988–2018
results over the past 30 years certainly say so. Artists born
after 1945 have seized more auction market share than any

art” as recently during which, he says, art began “being filtered through
the eyes of dealers” who largely championed “brash, bold,
other segment in the past three decades, going from just 0.8
percent of total sales value in 1988 to 13.7 percent in 2018.

as the late 1970s invincible” works by the likes of Julian Schnabel, Anselm
Kiefer, and Robert Longo. The stock market crash of 1987
That’s a gain of 1,700 percent.
Of the remaining categories of fine art, only postwar
and the AIDS crisis threw a shroud over this Masters of the increased its market share over this time frame, from 12.5
Universe mentality. The newly foreboding climate chimed percent in 1988 to 27.7 percent in 2018—a very healthy boost
with “a more introspective sensibility” shared by several of about 120 percent, but an order of magnitude less than
important young artists whose work explored themes of the game-changing growth of contemporary art.

28 29
Art Market Evolution

Among the biggest signs of this shift were the sales So why is this increasing overlap between auction hous-
at Sotheby’s of objects and ephemera from Damien Hirst’s es and galleries significant? Because each sector lacks what
Pharmacy restaurant in 2004 and the 2008 “Beautiful Inside the other offers. Auction houses have corporate structures How Did Auction Pros
My Head Forever” auction of Hirst that, Westphal recalls, that allow them to scale up their operations on a global play-
“bypassed any gallery system and did something you would ing field and pursue long-term strategies despite changes in
Track Prices Before the
call ‘direct to consumer,’ which was definitely not a term CEOs or ownership, but they lack access to fresh-to-market artnet Price Database?
used in the art world at the time.” inventory. Galleries, on the other hand, have direct access
The collapse of the distinction between auction to artistic production, but they are often passion-driven “The manual process of recording past sales
houses and galleries occurred “step by step,” according businesses operated by a charismatic founder (or founders) was to cut up the auction catalogue entries
to Ropac. He recalls Sotheby’s 1996 acquisition of André whose unique gifts and relationships cannot be easily trans- and paste them onto color-coded cards:
Emmerich Gallery, then primarily known for representing ferred to successors. Combine the two, and you have some- blue for Sotheby’s London, yellow for Sothe-
American color-field painters such as Morris Louis and thing approaching the kind of vertically integrated corporate by’s New York, red for Christie’s London,
Kenneth Noland, as an early milestone in a “slow process” structure that has enabled companies in other industries to green for Christie’s New York, purple for Phil-
through which the auction houses “tried to understand thrive in a global marketplace. lips London, and so on. We would handwrite
how they could get the best out of contemporary art.” We’re not there yet, to be sure, but this increasing the price achieved on these cards, and they
Christie’s followed suit in 2007 by acquiring the interna- hybridization shows no sign of slowing down. This spring, would then be sorted by the artist and the date
tional contemporary gallery Haunch of Venison, which Gagosian announced the appointment of gallery veteran of auction. So when you were researching an
then handled the likes of Richard Long, Bill Viola, and Andrew Fabricant to the newly created position of chief artist, you would take out the past two or three
Rachel Whiteread. operating officer, the establishment of a 24-member advisory years and then refile them later. It’s almost
The major houses eventually realized that running board of top salespeople, and, perhaps most notably, the hard to imagine in today’s world.”
From top: works from Damien Hirst’s
galleries that represented living artists was, in Ropac’s creation of a new, separate business called Gagosian Art
“Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” sale;
Hirst’s Your Beauty (2015)
words, “a step too far, and stepped back” to, at most, Advisory, LLC, led by Christie’s veteran Laura Paulson. Cheyenne Westphal, chairwoman of Phillips,
operating exhibition spaces focused on private sales. The move echoed the acquisition by Sotheby’s, three describing the manual system for price tracking
But even this development was a meaningful one, and years earlier, of the art advisory firm Art Agency, Partners. that was in place when she entered the auction
their consignments of contemporary works less than For both high-end galleries and auction houses, it seems, the world in 1990.

a decade old gradually moved from day-sale experiments goal is to transform into 360-degree art-service juggernauts
Myth 2: Auction Houses and to evening-sale fixtures over the past 10 years, at least capable of handling a client’s every need, from private buy-
Art Galleries Are Different Things in the United States. ing and selling to advising and estate planning to collections
Dealers have been equally responsible for redrawing management and logistics. The race is on to see who will
Unpacking how and why sales gravitated toward the new the art market’s borders. From Lucy Mitchell-Innes be best able to capitalize on the opportunities created by
lays bare some of the most fundamental changes in the art and David Nash, who exited Sotheby’s in the mid-‘90s, the growing—and increasingly global—market, ultimately
world since the late ‘80s. One of the biggest is the breakdown to Brett Gorvy, who departed Christie’s in 2016, major becoming the LVMH of art.
of the traditional border between auction houses and gal- auction-house staffers have proved increasingly unafraid
leries. This development, which is arguably still in its early to pivot to the gallery sector, where new work from the studio
stages, has done much to transform the art business into is, in many cases, offered alongside secondary-market materi-
a mature industry able to exploit the growing opportunities al premium enough to lead an evening sale.

that lie before it.
Thirty years ago, auction houses did not sell much
This exploding distribution mechanism for contem-
porary work powered up the sector in a way that no com-
“When I joined the business, there was a rule
contemporary art, which was considered the domain of art peting category could match. It is no coincidence that the that you wouldn’t offer an artwork by a living artist
dealers. “When I joined the business, there was a rule that
you wouldn’t offer an artwork by a living artist that wasn’t at
period during which the contemporary category made its
greatest gain in the auction market—between 2004 (when
that wasn’t at least 10 years old, so nothing
least 10 years old, so nothing truly contemporary was offered contemporary accounted for 5.9 percent of all sales) and truly contemporary was offered in a postwar sale”
in a postwar sale,” recounts Phillips chairwoman Cheyenne 2014 (14.9 percent)—maps almost exactly onto the one in
Westphal, who began her auction career at Sotheby’s in 1990. which the number of worldwide art fairs ballooned (from
“That has changed dramatically.” 68 in 2005 to more than 220 by 2015).

30 31
Art Market Evolution

Le Mayeur aside, the sales rankings will look This development has been largely driven by East Asia’s
Myth 3: There Is No Such much more familiar to the average Westerner since 2010,
Fine Art Lots Sold in Hong Kong
first-generation inheritors of mega-wealth. A large propor-
1991–2018
Thing as Global Taste after which point the internet, the identical international tion of this demographic grew up in families that collected
circuit traveled by socioeconomic elites, and other factors in more traditional categories, such as regional antiquities
It can be easy to forget how far the art market has come seem to have carried blue-chip artistic taste past an or Chinese ink paintings, and were educated (and culturally
in Asia, and how fast. Patti Wong says that when she was inf lection point. The other top-sellers at Hong Kong embedded) in the West during some of their formative years.
appointed chairman of Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2004, the auctions to date this decade are KAWS (nearly $37 million), “It’s quite regular that we have a collector in his late 20s
city was still viewed as a “regional hub” whose business Jean-Michel Basquiat (about $30 million), and Gerhard or early 30s buying seriously at auction—and not just one
relied on “Chinese collectors buying Chinese things.” Richter (about $25 million). or two, but in volume,” says Westphal. “It’s a generation of
Indeed, from 1991 (when artnet’s records for Hong Kong East Asian collectors haven’t just become more collectors very used to absorbing information, very keen on
begin) to 2004, a grand total of just 124 works by Western artists international in an astonishingly short period of time. finding out what is going on and what is going to be the next
sold at auction in the city, with a combined value of roughly $12.1 They have also become dramatically more discerning. big thing, and driving that, as well.”
Total Fine Art Sales in Hong Kong
million. Fast-forward to 2018, and 498 Western works collectively Only a few years ago, Allan Schwartzman says, Having two generations of collectors with roots in East Asia
1991–2018
brought in $132.7 million—almost 1,100 percent more in one the predilection for “buying names rather than works” has made a colossal difference for the Hong Kong auction market.
year alone than Western art made in that first 13-year stretch. made the region’s buyers vulnerable to “various people In 1991, Hong Kong houses in the Price Database combined to sell
Just as telling, Wong contends that a “key message of in the market who took advantage [of them] to sell 313 fine artworks (by both Asian and non-Asian artists) for $10.9
the last 10 years has been the Asian buying power outside inferior works at healthy prices.” Those days are gone. million. In 2018, a total of 9,017 works changed hands to generate
of Asia,” with sales in New York, London, and other Western According to Wong, “Asians rely on data,” typically almost $1.4 billion in sales, a 234-fold increase in 27 years.
markets being increasingly propelled by East Asian clients. researching not just previous sales prices but also Wong says that understanding the data-driven mind-set
In this respect, fine art is aligned with other 21st-cen- how those prices landed relative to presale estimates of East Asian collectors has allowed Sotheby’s to, in her words,
tury businesses. The world’s major commercial and cultural so that they can make shrewd decisions. move beyond “what people expected: the Warhol Mao, [Yoshito-
economies are now intertwined to an unprecedented degree. ma] Nara, [Yayoi] Kusama” and begin offering high-quality
It seems completely intuitive, for instance, that Marvel’s works by artists with solid market profiles but no sustained prior
Avengers: Endgame grossed $178 million at the mainland Western Fine Art Lots Sold in Hong Kong presence in Asia. Last April, for example, Sotheby’s Hong Kong
Chinese box office over Labor Day weekend, or that it is as 1991–2018 The result? Hong Kong is rapidly approaching price set new world records for both Ethiopian-born, New York-based
easy to find a Chanel store in Seoul as in Paris or New York. parity with London and New York, if it is not already there. As painter Julie Mehretu and New York-based sensation KAWS.
Yet blue-chip Western art did not become blue-chip evidence, Wong points to the results for Andy Warhol’s Mao This is why Wong says Asian collectors “no longer just
global art until the 2010s. It isn’t just that the preceding (1973), one of the marquee lots in Sotheby’s Hong Kong’s Mod- follow the data but are part of making the data” that charts
decades saw vanishingly few works by non-Asian artists come ern and contemporary evening sale in April 2017, which includ- the global market’s path—a development many would have
to auction in Hong Kong. The Western artists with strong ed Western artworks for the first time. The fiery red canvas sold considered unthinkable 30 years ago. So the next time you
presences in East Asia during this earlier era tended to be for the equivalent of $12.6 million with premium—identical, in hear a colleague or client gripe that the art market is doomed
regional sensations with little to no strength under the gavel terms of U.S. dollars, to the £7.6 million it brought at Sotheby’s to keep repeating the same mistakes, feel free to remind them
in other art-market hubs. In fact, even though he was Belgian London three years earlier and a gain of £2.4 million if the that an awful lot tends to change in three decades.
by birth and ethnicity, one of these early top-sellers, the Mod- pound sterling’s drop over that period is taken into account.
ernist painter Adrien Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès, is normally Total Sales of Western Fine Art in Hong Kong This accelerated learning curve has equipped the art mar-
included in Sotheby’s sales of Southeast Asian Art today. 1991–2018 ket as a whole to expand quickly and aggressively throughout
Looking strictly at paintings, the top-selling non-Asian East Asia. The inauguration of Art Basel Hong Kong in 2013
talent in Hong Kong during the 1990s was British artist ushered in a new era for the territory’s relationship to Western
George Chinnery, whose renditions of Chinese subjects and galleries. Although Pace recently announced it would close its
scenes amassed about $124,500 at auction. The two decades Beijing space, the globe-spanning gallery continues operating
since then have been led by Le Mayeur, who spent much of in Hong Kong, which also plays host to such heavyweights as
his career in Indonesia (and whose regional fame culminated Gagosian, David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, and Lévy Gorvy.
with a museum in his honor in Bali). His paintings brought Other high-tier galleries have set up permanent spaces else-
close to $20.3 million in the 2000s, and and have earned where in the region: Perrotin and Lehmann Maupin in Seoul; KAWS: Holiday in
Hong Kong’s Victoria
more than $43.1 million to date in the 2010s. Sean Kelly in Taiwan; Blum & Poe in Tokyo. Harbor in March 2019

32 33
Art Market Evolution

The Record-Breakers Goodbye Art World Hello Art Industry!

DISGUISING YOURSELF AS USING THE PDF PREVIEWS

AN ART HANDLER TO SNEAK AND ART BASEL APP TO FINISH
Here Are the Most Expensive Vincent van Gogh Francis Bacon
INTO ART BASEL BEFORE YOUR BUYING FROM HOME
Portrait of Dr. Gachet Three Studies of Lucian
Works of Art Sold at Auction (1890) Freud (1969)
THE OTHER COLLECTORS BEFORE THE FAIR OPENS

in the Past 30 Years WHEN: May 15, 1990 WHEN: November 12, 2013
CLOSING A $10,000 DEAL CLOSING A $1 MILLION
WHERE: Christie’s New York WHERE: Christie’s New York
THROUGH WEEKS DEAL THROUGH A FEW MINUTES
ESTIMATE: $40 million ESTIMATE: $85 million
Not long before the launch of the artnet Price Database, OF LETTERS AND FAXES OF MIDNIGHT TEXTING
Vincent van Gogh’s Irises (1889) set a record for the to $50 million SOLD FOR: $142.4 million
SOLD FOR: $82.5 million ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:
priciest work of art ever sold at auction when it fetched (MOSTLY) IGNORING AN (MOSTLY) FORGETTING THERE
$53.9 million at Sotheby’s New York in November 1987. ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION: $156.6 million
ART FAIR CALENDAR WITH IS LIFE OUTSIDE AIRPORTS
In the decades since, that record has been broken seven $161.7 million
ONLY THREE MAJOR EVENTS: AND THE 200+ FAIRS SPRINKLED
times. See the entire championship lineage here. Pablo Picasso
ART BASEL, ART COLOGNE, AROUND THE GLOBE
(All prices include premiums.) Pablo Picasso Les femmes d’Alger
AND ART ACTUEL IN BRUSSELS
Garçon à la pipe (Version ‘O’) (1955)
(1905) WHEN: May 11, 2015
STUMBLING INTO A JOB EARNING A MASTER’S IN
WHEN: May 5, 2004 WHERE: Christie’s New York From top: the first edition
of Kunstmarkt Köln AS A MUSEUM GUARD AND ART BUSINESS BUT GETTING
WHERE: Sotheby’s New York ESTIMATE: $140 million (Art Cologne); work by
Lu Yang at Art Basel Hong PARLAYING IT INTO A STUCK IN MIDDLE MANAGEMENT
ESTIMATE: $70 million SOLD FOR: $179.4 million Kong in 2019
SUCCESSFUL CURATORSHIP
SOLD FOR: $104.2 million ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:

ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION: $193.8 million

TOP GALLERISTS WHOSE TOP GALLERISTS WHO
$141.3 million
“STRATEGY FILES” CONSIST CONTRACT MCKINSEY TO
Leonardo da Vinci
ENTIRELY OF SCRIBBLED- PERFECT THEIR FIVE-, 10-,
Pablo Picasso Salvator Mundi (ca. 1500)
ON COCKTAIL NAPKINS AND 25-YEAR PLANS
Nude, Green Leaves WHEN: November 15, 2017
and Bust (1932) WHERE: Christie’s New York
WONDERING IF A COLLECTOR RECEIVING AN AUTOMATED
WHEN: May 4, 2010 ESTIMATE: $100 million
WILL RETURN THOSE SLIDES EMAIL TO ALERT YOU
WHERE: Christie’s New York SOLD FOR: $450.3 million
OF NEW WORK THAT YOU THAT THE COLLECTOR
ESTIMATE: $70 million ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:
SENT HIM DOWNLOADED THE DROPBOX
to $90 million $470.6 million
OF HIGH-RES IMAGES
SOLD FOR: $106.5 million
ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:
AUCTION RESULTS AUCTION RESULTS DOMINATED
$125.1 million
DOMINATED BY CHANCE BY IN-HOUSE GUARANTEES
AND THE ENERGY AND THIRD-PARTY
Edvard Munch
IN THE ROOM IRREVOCABLE BIDS PLACED
The Scream (1895)
BEFORE THE SALE BEGINS
WHEN: May 2, 2012
WHERE: Sotheby’s New York
Images from top: Vincent
van Gogh, Portrait of Dr.
EARNING YOUR BONUS EARNING YOUR BONUS BY
ESTIMATE: $80 million
Gachet (1890); Pablo Picasso,
Nude, Green Leaves and Bust
BY GATHERING SCARCE DISTILLING A MASS OF MARKET
SOLD FOR: $119.9 million
(1932); Francis Bacon, Three
Studies of Lucian Freud
MARKET INFORMATION INFORMATION INTO WHAT YOU
ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:
(1969); Pablo Picasso, Garçon
à la pipe (1905)
ACTUALLY NEED TO KNOW
$133.8 million

34 35
Art Market Evolution

Know Your
Auction History
1988 1989 1997 1998 1999 2001
Victor and Sally Ganz’s
Sotheby’s goes artnet launches the collection brings in $206.5
Luxury-goods titan artnet begins
holding the first
Phillips taps Simon de Pury as
chairman and Daniella Luxem-
public on the first digital database million at Christie’s, making François Pinault online-only bourg as president of the newly
this the most lucrative sin-
New York Stock of auction prices. gle-owner auction ever.
buys a majority stake fine-art auctions. renamed house Phillips, de Pury
& Luxembourg.
Exchange. in Christie’s.
Auctioneer
Oliver Barker
at Sotheby’s

2008 2002
Sotheby’s holds Damien Former Sotheby’s chairman
Hirst’s boundary-breaking
“Beautiful Inside My Head A. Alfred Taubman is sentenced
Forever” sale. That same to 10 months in prison for
night, Lehman Brothers
2012 2009 files for bankruptcy— conducting a six-year price-
Sotheby’s holds its first Yves Saint Laurent’s art signaling the start of the fixing scheme with Christie’s.
sale in mainland China. collection fetches a record Great Recession.
Donald Trump
The Mercury Group buys $483.8 million at Christie’s. and Alfred Taubman
in 1989
Simon de Pury’s stake and
rebrands the auction house
as simply Phillips (again).

Damien Hirst, The Physical

Impossibility of Death in the
Mind of Someone Living (1991)

2013 2014 2016 2018 2019

Christie’s and Sotheby’s
both report more than
Christie’s November con- Sotheby’s acquires the The Rockefeller Collection
Sotheby’s agrees to be
art advisory Art Agency, brings in $832 million
$1 billion in private sales temporary art evening Partners for $85 million. at Christie’s, a new record acquired for $3.7 billion by
for the first time.
auction in New York makes for priciest single-owner sale.
French telecom tycoon
$853 million, the highest Patrick Drahi, who plans to
total for a single sale ever. take the house private (again).
36 37
Is the Auction
Why the golden age of
guarantees may be over

Guarantee
Bubble About
to Pop?

In 1986, the newsprint magnate Peter Brant made what

was then an unprecedented deal. The collection of
the taxi tycoon Robert Scull was heading to auction at
Sotheby’s, and Brant negotiated with the executor of the
estate to pay more than $5 million for a majority stake
in the legendary collector’s holdings before they were
sold off. That November, when Scull’s collection made
a total of $8.6 million, Brant walked away with a number
by Eileen Kinsella of works he coveted—and a hefty profit to boot.

38 39
Auction Guarantees

Total Hammer Prices Have guarantees become

Impressionist, Contemporary, & Old Master Evening
too popular for their own How a Third-Party Guarantee Works
Sales 2007–18 in London, New York, & Hong Kong
good? And what will A guarantee agreement can be entered into in two ways:

happen to the market if

a tool it once relied on is
put back in the shed?
The auction house offers The client proactively
the consignor a guaranteed approaches the house
minimum price with its own to negotiate a deal.
money—and then seeks out
a client to back the work.
Data courtesy of Pi-eX Ltd

Deals c
an be ce
or even mented
ho days,
auction urs , before an
. Dealer
recalls ha Anthony
vi G ra
rebuffed ng his guarante nt
— e
In the 33 years since this behind-the-scenes trans- As the art market regained strength around 2010, the come bac only to have the offer
k a week house
sale to se before th
e e
action, Brant’s mechanism—now known as a third-party houses had to find a way to remain competitive while limit- The auction house, consignor, ed . (H e w if he was still inte
as .) rest-
guarantee, or irrevocable bid—has become so widely used ing their exposure. The solution: farm out the risk to willing and guarantor determine whether
that much of the art in a marquee evening sale may have investors and offer them a reward in return. the guarantor will be paid a
been spoken for long before the auctioneer even picks up For a few years, as the art market continued its buoyant financing fee and, most impor-
his gavel. A guarantee is now an accepted financial deriv- rebound, the technique worked like a charm. But those days tantly, settle on a minimum price
ative that, depending on whom you talk to, either distorts now seem to be numbered. Research shows that third-par- at which the guarantor pledges
the art market or offers auction houses and consignors a ty-guarantee performance crested in 2017. That year, the to buy the work.
useful tool to hedge their bets. total value of artworks sold with irrevocable bids reached
“It’s magic for the auction houses,” says Christine Bour- more than $2 billion (based on hammer prices), according
On the day of the sale, be alert:
ron, CEO of London-based financial firm Pi-eX. “It allows to Pi-eX. In 2018, sales of works with guarantees shrank by
The only way to confirm which works
them to get the seller and at the same time pass on the risk.” 10 percent, to $1.8 billion.
are guaranteed is to listen to the
After an unprecedented expansion in recent years, This downward trend continued in the first semester
auctioneer’s rapid-fire announce-
third-party guarantees may have lost their magic. Their use of 2019. Most affected were New York’s May contempo- “I alwa
ments of the latest deals. ys h
ready w ave my pen
appears to have peaked. Now, the trade is left wondering: rary-art evening sales, where the number of works sold h
the lots en they anno
th u
deals in at have third nce all
Have guarantees become too popular for their own good? with irrevocable bids decreased by almost 25 percent from p
Wierbic lace,” says D
-party
ki, head iana
practic o
And what will happen to the market if a tool it once relied on the 2017 pinnacle, tumbling from 62 then to 47 in 2019. e at Wit f the art law
hers W
orldwid
e.
is put back in the shed? Data provided by the auction houses reinforces this shift.
Christie’s had a high of 38 deals in place for its postwar
The Rise and Fall of Guarantees and contemporary evening sale in May 2017; the number
If bidding does not reach the If bidding surpasses the guarantee,
for the recent May evening sale was 16, or less than half.
agreed-upon minimum price, the guarantor pockets a pre-negotiat-
Third-party guarantees became increasingly popular over Similarly, Sotheby’s secured 23 third-party guarantees for
the guarantor pays up and ed portion of the upside—anywhere
the past decade as Christie’s and Sotheby’s looked to limit its Impressionist and Modern evening sales in November
goes home with the work. from 10 to 50 percent, but usually
their liability following a bruising 2007 auction season at the 2018 but just 14 for its most recent sale, in May. (Phillips
between 20 and 30 percent.
dawn of the financial crisis. After competing to attract prop- has reported a consistent level of third-party guarantees
erty, they ended up stuck with a reported $63 million worth —around 30 percent of the works in its spring sales—over
of art they had guaranteed with their own money. the past two years.)

40 41
Auction Guarantees

Have Guarantees Lost “I’ve seen lots of very smart clients who were sure they Guaranteed… to Backfire?
were going to end up getting paid for a picture they had
Their Mojo? no interest in—and, to their chagrin, they ended up having Guarantees may also be losing their shine for auction houses,
to take the picture home with them at a big price,” says which can be left holding the bag if high-profile works
This drop appears likely to continue for one big reason:
attorney Thomas Danziger. subject to complex financing agreements underperform.
Guarantees have a lower payoff than they used to. In recent
Compounding this trend is the fact that the market Last year, Sotheby’s suffered losses when two guaranteed
years, according to Pi-eX, a growing proportion of lots with
is experiencing an overall dip at the top end, where most paintings failed to meet expectations.
third-party guarantees have fallen short of expectations
third-party guarantees are negotiated. Sales of works priced At the house’s Impressionist and Modern evening
across the major evening sales in London, New York, and
at more than $10 million dropped by 34 percent in the first auction in May 2018, Modigliani’s Nu couché (sur le côté
Hong Kong.
half of 2019 compared with the first six months of 2018, gauche) (1917) carried a lofty $150 million estimate, the
In 2018, almost 40 percent of the works offered with a
according to data collected by the artnet Price Database. largest estimate ever placed on a single work. But after sev-
guarantee sold at or below their low estimates. Furthermore,
Paintings that have sold to their guarantors this year in- eral protracted—and painful—pauses by the auctioneer, it
more and more guarantors have ended up going home
clude Andy Warhol’s Double Elvis [Ferus Type] (1963), which was hammered down at a below-estimate $139 million. The
with the works on which they placed advanced bids: 6 percent
fetched $53 million at Christie’s, and Mark Bradford’s Helter following month, a 1932 Picasso painting, Buste de femme
in 2017, 12 percent in 2018, and 18 percent in the first half
Skelter II (2007), which sold for $8.5 million at Phillips. de profil (Femme écrivant), fell well short of its $45 million
of 2019.
One cautionary tale is the story behind the appearance estimate to sell for $36 million on a single bid. Both works
at Gagosian’s Art Basel booth this June of Peter Doig’s The Ar- went home with their respective guarantors.
chitect’s Home in the Ravine (1991) just 15 months after it sold Sotheby’s later noted that the two deals put a drag on
to its guarantor, Abdallah Chatila, at Sotheby’s for $20 million. its earnings in the second quarter of 2018. Its commission
The Back(er) List: The presentation underscored yet another reason guarantees margin, it said at the time, was reduced by two factors: “a
are becoming less appealing: With a recent published auction higher level of auction commission shared with consignors”
Here Are the Biggest Third-Party price, it becomes difficult to make a swift profit on a resale. and buyers’ premiums “used to offset auction guarantee
Backers in the Game shortfalls and fees incurred in respect of auction guarantee
risk sharing agreements.” In other words, Sotheby’s sacri-
ficed some of its profit to lure top-flight works with top-flight
guarantees—and was left in the hole when the paintings
failed to fly at auction.
Bill Acquavella Peter Brant Pierre Chen The house seems eager not to repeat its mistake. In
art dealer magazine publisher electronics-company
founder December, the position of COO held by prominent deal-
maker Adam Chinn—widely known in the industry for his
outsize appetite for risk—was eliminated. His replacements, From top: Amedeo Modigliani, Nu
couché (sur le côté gauche) (1917);
John Cahill as chief commercial officer and Ken Citron as Pablo Picasso, Buste de femme de
profil (Femme écrivant) (1932)
Kemal Has David Geffen Jude Hess executive vice president of operations, are believed to be
Cingillioglu record producer art dealer Left: Andy Warhol, Double Elvis
financier and media magnate [Ferus Type] (1963); below: Peter more cautious. At the end of the second quarter of this year,
Doig, The Architect’s Home on the
Ravine (1991). Both works sold to
their guarantors.
the auction house noted that its commission margins had
rebounded in the absence of major money-losing deals.
Sotheby’s sacrificed
some of its profit to lure
Joe Lewis
currency trader
top-flight works with
top-flight guarantees—
Jose Mugrabi &
Alberto Mugrabi
David Nahmad &
Helly Nahmad
and was left in the hole
art collectors
and dealers
art collectors
and dealers when the paintings
failed to fly at auction.
42 43
Auction Guarantees

Looking Down the Line

The Deal of a Lifetime Regardless of what is causing the slowdown, one thing Symbols to Know
is clear: The golden age of guarantees may be coming
to an end. So what happens next?
Some observers predict that the speculators who
Every auction house notates deals a bit
There may be no better guarantee deal in the entire history of the art market entered the guarantee market in recent years—those
differently. Here are the symbols to look
than the one arranged between Christie’s and the client who put an irrevocable whom Cynthia Sachs, the CIO of Athena Art Finance,
out for in the auction catalogue.
bid on Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which was estimated at around describes as “a second tier of younger guarantors who
$100 million but soared to a final price of $450.3 million in November 2017. are less seasoned and maybe taking a little more risk”
Due to client confidentiality rules, auction houses do not reveal the identity —are likely to look elsewhere to make a quick buck.
Phillips
of third-party guarantors. But artnet News’s Kenny Schachter reported it was For some, this is a welcome development that might
Taiwanese billionaire Pierre Chen, whom he called the auction houses’s make the market a bit more reflective of actual demand.
○ Guaranteed property
“go-to guarantor for big-ticket items” and “by far the world’s most successful Guarantees, says art advisor Todd Levin, “work like
player in this arena, and the canniest.” steroids do for bodybuilders, in that they artificially en- ♦ Third-party guarantee
Chen, who presumably placed an irrevocable bid somewhere near the low large markets.”
Δ Property in which Phillips has
estimate of $100 million, likely received a payout in the nine figures as a result, Moving forward, the guarantee business may return
an ownership interest
according to sources. Though each deal is different, Chen likely received both to the smaller club of solid, seasoned players with a
Leonarda da Vinci,
Salvator Mundi (c. 1500) a financing fee and the right to share a percentage of the upside—which, in deep knowledge of the market—Peter Brant and those
Sotheby’s
this case, cashed in at roughly $300 million, the difference between the low like him—who helped develop it in the first place.
estimate and the $400 million hammer price. But if fewer works have bids in place before an auction
° Guaranteed property
For Chen, a 10 percent share of that upside would work out to a cool $30 begins, one thing is certain: The art market is about
million. If he negotiated as much as 30 percent of the upside, he would have to become a lot less predictable. Property for which a third party
pocketed around $90 million. Not a bad payoff for a losing bid. has provided Sotheby’s with an
irrevocable bid

∆ Property owned partially or fully

by Sotheby’s

What Does It Mean? Christie’s

As is often the case in the art market, the growing avoidance Still, not everyone sees the dip in guarantees as ° Guaranteed property
of guarantees may be as much psychological as it is driven a red flag. Market boosters say it is simply a rosy sign
♦ Third-party guarantee
by spreadsheets and profit margins. Bidders, some say, have of confidence in a more stable—i.e., no longer frothy—
become reluctant to compete against someone who already market. In a conference call with investors in May, Sothe- ∆ Property owned partially or fully
has a potentially lucrative deal in place and may have more by’s CEO Tad Smith noted that a large number of estates by Christie’s or a Christie’s affiliate
information than other bidders heading into the sale. and charitable organizations that had consigned work
¤ A party with a direct or indirect
“Your money goes farther than everyone else’s money” opted against a guarantee, choosing to take their chances
interest in the property, who may
when you make a third-party guarantee, notes attorney so they would not have to share the upside with a
have knowledge about the
Luke Nikas. Clients who submit such a bid often—though third party.
property’s reserve or other sale
not always—receive a financing fee from the auction house, “These are very sophisticated consignors,” Smith said.
information, may be bidding
so if they end up owning the work, the overall cost is lower. “When you begin to see people saying, ‘Maybe we don’t want
Competitors don’t like that another bidder has such an the guarantee,’ it’s a very interesting indicator of the health
advantage, and without competition, guarantees become of the market.”
a lot less profitable.

44 45
The Business
New collectors entering the market relationships with collectors who are ed in me that when I bought a specific
today often complain about not get- going to buy that artist’s work in depth. artwork, they opened a bottle of cham-
ting access to the work they want. But if you’re going for a more estab- pagne as soon as I left the gallery.

of Art Collecting:
They may have the money to buy it, lished contemporary artist, unless you
but if a gallery doesn’t know them, have an advisor or unless the gallery You’re one of the few private collec-
they are unlikely to get the oppor- knows you, it is quite difficult to walk tors I can think of who has bought a
tunity. What was it like for you when in off the street and just buy art, re- Christoph Büchel installation.

A Roundtable
you first started collecting? gardless of how much money you have. Daskalopoulos
Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo At the very beginning of my collecting, Which takes two containers to store.
When I started in the 1990s, the my advisor gave me access to galleries, We’ve shown it in Athens once, for a
market was very slow. I remember and that was really important, because two-month period as part of a summer
coming to London and all the galleries in the early days, I probably wouldn’t festival. I’m glad we have it, but it’s very
were so friendly and welcoming—they have been able to buy what I wanted. hard to show.
Three patrons reflect on how introduced me to artists, they took me Dimitris Daskalopoulos

the pursuit has changed. to their studios. I’m not sure if it’s the
same if you start to collect now and
I had the opposite experience, because
I have always bought the things that
And when you show it, presumably
Büchel has to come and supervise
a gallery doesn’t know you. nobody else wants, so I have always the process?
Paul Ettlinger had easy access. I had the gratitude Daskalopoulos
It might be similar if you’re collecting of galleries who were able to get rid of Oh, yes—it costs more money again
very young artists from younger galler- some of their huge installations that to put it up.
ies, because they’re looking to establish are so hard to sell. One of them confid-
by Cristina Ruiz

Thirty years ago, buying contempo- from London to Shanghai to Hobart,

rary art was the leisurely pursuit of a Tasmania. We have not seen such an
cosmopolitan elite. Today, it is more epic period of private gallery construc-
like a competitive spectator sport. The tion since industrialists like Solomon
massive growth of the market for new Guggenheim and John Paul Getty were
art—driven by the spread of interna- building museums bearing their names
tional art fairs, the proliferation in the mid-20th century.
of auctions, and the establishment of To better understand this critical
mega-galleries on multiple continents moment, we spoke to three art patrons
—has been fueled by the arrival of a who are each at a different stage
wave of new buyers. Today, hedge- in their collecting careers: Patrizia
fund investors keen to diversify their Sandretto Re Rebaudengo of Turin,
portfolios, property developers looking Dimitris Daskalopoulos of Athens,
to add cultural cachet to their build- and Paul Ettlinger of London. The trio
ings, deep-pocketed collectors from met one recent morning in Mayfair
non-Western emerging economies, and over coffee and pastries to discuss the
those simply wanting to gain access to rise of private collector-run museums,
a glitzy social scene all vie to acquire changes to the art market (and how
contemporary art. they negotiate them), and the future
Several of these new buyers have of their own collections at a time of
amassed massive collections—often increased scrutiny of private collectors.
in a remarkably short time—and put
From left: Paul Ettlinger, Dimitris Daskalopoulos,
their spoils on public display in cities Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

46 47
Collectors’ Roundtable
Daskalopolous Re Rebaudengo
I don’t think that it’s less expensive to I think there is a solution. In 2015, the
organize pop-up shows instead. My city of Sheffield [in England] organized
team tells me that every time we do a great event called “Going Public.”
a project, it’s like setting up a museum They invited four collectors, including
and then taking it down. For our cur- me, to show part of their collections
rent project on the island of Delos, we there and then organized two days of
will spend two months after the instal- talks. The idea was to show works that
lation closes taking down 29 sculptures collectors keep in storage, or that they
Left: Antony Gormley, SHIFT II (2000) at the Delos by Antony Gormley. I don’t have a only loan to important museums in
Museum; above, Alicja Kwade, WeltenLinie (2017),
from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection at gallery for my collection because I major capital cities. We should start
Palazzo Biscari, Catania
think it’s more valuable to do different to imagine that collectors could give
projects in different places where they their art to places like Sheffield for free.
are needed. The ownership would remain with
And when I think about the us, but if cities like Sheffield have spac-
future of my art in the long term, I es to display works, they could show
think public institutions are definitely our collections. I think it’s important
much better placed to keep whatever that people should be able to see the
is valuable in my collection in dialogue art we own.
with what will come in the future, and Daskalopolous
to preserve it so it can be shown. Public That is the most important thing.
institutions are much better than any That’s why I’m worried about this.
structure that we, as individuals, can I am very open to lending. I consider
Over the past 15 years, an increasing number of Ettlinger leave behind. I think I’ve created a col- my collection a repository, accessible
collectors have opened galleries to show their art. I don’t agree with Dercon, because many collectors support mu- lection that has a theme and coherence. to anyone. But it’s very rare to get loan
Chris Dercon, the former director of Tate Modern and seums and institutions while also forming their own collections. I don’t need to be adding to it anymore. requests for large installations. And
now head of the Grand Palais in Paris, has said that col- Museums are very welcome to borrow the works we collect, Now I want to devote the rest of my even if you’re willing to gift them to
lectors should be supporting public museums instead and some of us bear the expenses of that, like shipping and activity around the collection giving a museum, I think it’s sometimes a
of establishing their own spaces, because they do not insurance, when we lend to them. So, in reality, there isn’t these artworks and the artists who burden for institutions, because these
have the accumulated expertise of major institutions. a dichotomy there. The more that art can be shown in made them some kind of future. large works need storage and insurance,
What’s your response? accessible places, the better. We shouldn’t be criticizing the fact and everybody’s money is running out.
Re Rebaudengo that people want to have their art on public display. There might And how will you do that? Can we Re Rebaudengo
It’s true that many private museums have opened in recent be a point in asking how accessible individual private museums expect to see some of your works in I am also increasingly thinking about
years. And many have already closed. Some collectors opened are. Are they only open one day a year because they’ve been set the collection of Tate or MoMA? the future of my collection. I really hope
a space because it was fashionable and then realized that up to reduce one’s taxes? But that is a different point. Daskalopolous that it can remain together. Public
running a gallery is not an easy job. But I think we have to Daskalopolous Maybe, yes. Unfortunately, there are museums have a lot, a lot, a lot of work
consider where these private spaces are located. In Italy, the It’s important to point out that in Europe we generally don’t some artworks that we as private that they cannot show. So, in the end,
first national contemporary art museum, MAXXI in Rome, have tax benefits for giving art to museums or opening collectors own that probably do not to give art to museums for them to put
opened in 2010. It was important that many private collec- foundations—in fact, we have tax burdens. When you give have a future because they are too big it in storage is not ideal. I have a space,
tors decided to establish spaces long before that, because in something worth €10,000, for example, to a charitable or- From top: Antony Gormley, SHORE (2012) and to be shown or too difficult to store, so and I hope to keep my collection on
REFLECT (2017) on the island of Delos in a show
many places it was the only way for the public to see contem- ganization or museum in Greece, you then also have to give organized by Daskalopoulos’s NEON Foundation they may stay in the dark forever. The display there. I also have two sons who
porary art. Maybe in cities where there are many important half a percentage point to the state as a donation tax. question is: What do we do with them? sit on the board of my foundation and
museums, it’s not so necessary for private collectors to open Re Rebaudengo How do we work with museums or are very involved in art, so I’m quite
a museum. In Italy, it’s the same. We don’t have any fiscal advantages. with the artists themselves to find a positive about my collection’s future—
For tax purposes, my foundation is considered a commercial destination for these works? although you never know what will
activity. It’s very expensive to run. happen in the long term.

48 49
Collectors’ Roundtable

Paul, would you like to open very quickly under the pressure of Do you think this increased scrutiny
“BEFORE, WE HAD THE TIME TO
a space? activism and social media is that will stop people from donating to
Ettlinger we will enter a climate of fear—fear museums? THINK ABOUT A WORK, DISCUSS
Yes, sooner rather than later, although of doing anything new, for exam- Ettlinger
IT WITH OUR ADVISOR. NOW,
I suspect it’s going to be later. I would ple—because we’re trying to be too Almost certainly. If people have some-
love to have a space where we have correct in everything. This will stifle thing to hide, they will think twice THERE’S NO TIME.”
our works out of storage. We do show creativity. I think what is wrong with about donating. But maybe that’s not a
the art in our home to family, friends, all this is that these activist groups bad thing. Maybe this is where private
and visitors and organize evenings are too quick to make too big a fuss museums come in. Maybe these indi-
with artists, and we very much enjoy without actually proposing a solution viduals will set up their own private
this. We looked at a former printing or an alternative for the problem at museums instead.
facility in Margate as a potential home hand. They are also outsourcing their Daskalopolous
for the collection, but if I’m going to cause, which is something I totally It goes beyond individuals donating
put my works on public display, I want disagree with. to museums. With some corpora-
to have easy access to them so I can tions, for example, the objection
go and see them—that’s part of the What do you mean by that? about accepting their money is that
passion for me. I don’t want to have Daskalopolous they do not do enough for a specific
to get on a train. I mean that instead of directly tar- cause, a good cause that is dear
geting what they are against, they put to the public, such as climate change.
A major shift we’ve seen over sensitive intermediaries like muse- What is enough? Who defines it?
the past 18 months is the way that ums in the [firing line] to blackmail If, as a corporation, you suddenly From left: Paul Ettlinger, Dimitris Daskalopoulos,
Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
museum benefactors are being them into doing something that they decide, “We’re not doing enough—
scrutinized, from the Sacklers hope will bring about the good cause we’re going to double what we’re
to Warren Kanders at the Whitney, they’re campaigning for. They don’t doing,” will that be enough? Climate Let’s turn to the workings of the art world, and the mar- Daskalopolous
and the way institutions are system- realize that they may be depriving change is very important for all of ket in particular. You have all been buying art for many I think the fundamentals of the art market have never
atically being pressured to sever themselves and their peers of the us, and certainly we’re not doing years. Are there some aspects of the market that you changed. We are talking about creativity that there is no
ties with patrons who are deemed benefits of money that has ended up enough, because we have not solved find antiquated and unprofessional? objective value to. We are talking about a market that’s
problematic. Do you think this being used for good causes and for the problem. But let’s not destroy Ettlinger based on intelligent people deciding to put their money
will put rich people off from donat- the public. other good things in society because It would be helpful to have more understanding of how somewhere of their own free will with a handshake. These
ing to museums? Ettlinger we have a good cause to advance. galleries work and how they pay their artists. A young artist fundamentals have never changed and never will. It is un-
Daskalopolous I slightly disagree with that. Because If donors become afraid and stop recently told me he’s not expecting to get paid by his gallery organized, it is inexplicable, but it keeps happening. If I feel
Is there such a thing as purely clean you could be saying that it’s accept- giving money to museums, who for works of his that it sold. I was quite saddened by that, and sometimes I’ve overpaid for something, I would not blame
money? How do we define that? If we able to launder money: “If you do a is going to lose? The public. So in I think there’s sometimes a problem with the way galleries anyone but myself. I would never go back to the gallery and
open this discussion, what mechanism bad thing but then later do a good pursuing a good cause, we’re maybe and their artists handle their relationships; it seems as if say, “You overcharged me.”
will we establish to define what clean thing by donating money to a mu- doing wrong somewhere else. some of them don’t have written agreements. Maybe that’s
money is? seum, it makes up for the bad thing Activism and idealism are useful in why we, as collectors, need to look after the artists whose One of the things people complain about in the art mar-
you’ve done.” But it’s a complicated pushing us to do more and sooner. work we collect and help them so that they feel supported. ket today is the speculators, who buy just so they can
The discussion is open, so the issue. We all know about the scandal But in themselves, they should not Re Rebaudengo flip work and make a profit.
question is: How do museums of opioids in America today. But at be judgment mechanisms or justice Everything in the art market happens so quickly now. Daskalopolous
respond to it? the time the Sacklers gave money to mechanisms. The day before a fair opens, galleries send us PDFs of all the Again, I say it’s a free market with intelligent players acting
Daskalopolous museums, we were not so well in- works that will be for sale there. If you don’t immediately of their own free will buying and selling art. We have orga-
The thing I fear about people in formed, and that money was accepted call or email the gallery and say, “I want this,” then when you nized stock markets to speculate legally, so we shouldn’t be
important jobs needing to respond by museums in good faith. arrive at the fair they’ll tell you, “I’m sorry, it’s sold.” Before, surprised that people do it in the art market.
we had the time to think about a work, discuss it with our
advisor. Now, there’s no time.

50 51
Collectors’ Roundtable

It’s not great for the artists. Ettlinger

About the
Daskalopolous I agree. I have often thought there should be transfer fees paid Collectors
That is something we need to correct. We should find a way by big galleries to smaller ones, but it is also up to the artist to
for artists to benefit from secondary sales. I know some ensure that fairness exists. However, big galleries can dictate
people who say that when they resell art, they give a portion their own terms. In Oscar Murillo’s case, even though he joined
of the profit to the artist. Zwirner, he does still work with the smaller London gallery
Re Rebaudengo Carlos/Ishikawa, which has been with him since the beginning.
You say the market has not changed, but it’s a lot bigger than Daskalopolous
it used to be. In the 1990s, it was much smaller, and prices So the art market should function more like soccer?
were not like they are today. If you collect the work of young Re Rebaudengo
artists, as I do, the market has changed quite a bit, because Yes. How many young galleries have closed? They started
today some of these artists are invited to join important with artists that are well-known today, yet the gallery that
galleries at the beginning of their career, and this can be discovered them is unable to continue to operate. It’s also
problematic. The moment of speculation is not when the not good for the artists to join a big gallery when they are
artist joins Zwirner or Gagosian, it’s when rumors start too young, because when you’re in a small gallery, you can
circulating about a particular artist’s joining a large gal- experiment, you can fail, you can grow. When you’re with
lery. This is the moment in which collectors can buy their a big gallery, you have to constantly prove that you are good.
work for a good price and you can make a lot of money. Auctions can also be a problem. When I started buying art,
Take Oscar Murillo. You could buy his work for just a small it was mainly Impressionists that were selling at auction.
amount of money before, and now that he is with Zwirner, Now young artists are there too, and it’s rarely good for
prices have more than doubled. them. In the primary market, your work might be selling
Daskalopolous for €50,000, and then, six months later, your work is
Yes, but how many collectors have bought work by young suddenly selling for €500,000 at auction—and then what
artists and then the work never went anywhere? There are happens? How do you ensure that people don’t buy your
countless cases. The press only writes about the success work from the gallery just to flip it at auction? This is also
Patrizia Sandretto Dimitris Paul
stories, not the multitude of unsuccessful ones. There are a a very big change. Re Rebaudengo Daskalopoulos Ettlinger
lot of ways to influence some artists’ prices upwards, but in began buying art in 1992. Just three is a Greek entrepreneur who found- is a British doctor who founded the
the end, I think it has been proven throughout the centuries years later, she established a foundation ed the financial services company London General Practice and the Lon-
that the art that lasts and becomes valuable over time is to support young artists with her hus- DAMMA Holdings SA. He has been don Global Practice in Harley Street.
the better art. band, Agostino, scion of an aristocratic collecting contemporary art for around He has been collecting for around 10
Re Rebaudengo Piedmontese family. Today, she oper- 25 years and owns some 500 works. He years, with a particular focus on the
We do have to think about what happens when artists leave ates two spaces for her collection and favors large, difficult installations, such work of young, emerging artists. An
the small galleries that supported them at the beginning of programming: one in an 18th-century as the Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph early collector of the work of Oscar
their careers. This is a very big problem. In the [European] palazzo in Guarene, 30 miles southeast Büchel’s 5,000-square-foot Unplugged Murillo, he helped fund a show of
football world, when a young player moves to another team, of Turin, and one in the city itself. (Simply Botiful) (2007), which contains the artist’s work at the South London
there is a transfer fee payable to the team he is leaving. In A keen commissioner of new art, she a bar, sleeping areas, and vast moun- Gallery in 2013. Ettlinger’s 250-piece
the art market, there are no transfer fees—so if you are a is also a generous lender of works from tains of junk. In 2013, he launched collection also includes works by such
young gallerist, you lose out. Maybe you’re lucky because you her 1,500-piece collection, which in- NEON, a foundation that organizes established artists as Sarah Lucas,
have some works by the artist in storage so you can benefit cludes works by Ian Cheng, Josh Kline, pop-up art shows around Greece. George Condo, Rebecca Warren,
from the price rise: But if you don’t, you’ll lose everything and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. (The organization recently placed 29 and Isa Genzken.
you worked for. sculptures by Antony Gormley on the
uninhabited island of Delos.) He serves
as vice president of the board of the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
in New York.

52 53
 There
by Rebecca Anne Proctor Ask a question about the And while the continent’s local collector base is grow-
ing steadily—Sotheby’s fourth dedicated auction of Modern
African art market, and many and contemporary African art in April was dominated by
experts will be quick to tell

Is
African buyers and generated a total of $3 million, above
its presale high estimate of $2.7 million—it is still nascent
you that there is no such thing. compared with the US, China, and Europe.
How could one market possibly What is missing? “You need an infrastructure,” says
Hannah O’Leary, head of Modern and contemporary
encompass 54 countries,

No
African art at Sotheby’s. “On the whole, there is a real lack
1.2 billion people, and countless of public support. We are seeing lots of raw talent, but we
need more of a market structure in order to support their
aesthetic traditions? careers.”

Such
Some ambitious institutions are already rising. Over the
It can’t. But that won’t stop the global art market from past two years, museums like Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town,
trying. The commercial sector has a way of co-opting talent the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden
into the international art slipstream (sometimes flattening in Marrakech, and the Museum of Black Civilizations in
history and context in the process). It has done so with art- Dakar have launched with a mission to write their own

Thing
ists—and entire movements—from Asia and Latin America contemporary art histories. Meanwhile, artists who have
in the past. Africa may be next in line. already found commercial success, such as Hassan Hajjaj
The seeds are there: strong art schools, a growing and Ibrahim Mahama, have set up institutions of their own
number of high-net-worth individuals, and rapid urbaniza- to nurture young talent at home.

as
tion. Researchers project that the continent will be home to
at least nine cities of more than 10 million people by 2050.
Meanwhile, museums in Europe and North America have
A Closer Look
hosted an unprecedented number of shows of African art
A single hub for such a massive and heterogenous continent
in recent years, while art fairs dedicated to the field have

the
may never materialize. Instead, Rakeb Sile, cofounder of
sprung up worldwide, including 1-54 in New York, London,
the gallery Addis Fine Art, predicts that “there will be and
and Marrakech and the newer Art X Lagos, which kicks off
should be different hubs in several regions of Africa.”
its fourth edition in Nigeria in November.
We have assembled a guide to six of these dynamic
Activity in cities such as Marrakech and Lagos is “open-
emerging art capitals: Accra, Addis Ababa, Cape Town,

African
ing the eyes of collectors,” says Kavita Chellaram, founder
Dakar, Lagos, and Marrakech. Each city has its own heri-
of the Lagos-based auction house Arthouse Contemporary.
tage, culture, and distinctive history with colonialism—re-
“African collectors from different regions are now interested
sulting in unique artistic production.
in buying African art from different regions. There will be
Painting remains most popular in East Africa, which is
an African art market. It’s just the beginning.”

Art
home to the two oldest art schools on the continent, while
West Africa has fostered more experimentation with large-
What’s Ahead scale installations and performance-based work. Both sides
of the continent also have a rich tradition of photography.
Today, Africa’s art market has plenty of room to grow. “There shouldn’t be any question about quality and

Market Yet.
Fewer than 1,000 works were sold at auction on the talent in Africa,” O’Leary says. And where talent goes, the
continent in the first six months of 2019, according to art world follows. The presence of an increasingly wealthy
the artnet Price Database. Unlike Asia, where Hong Kong clientele to cater to certainly helps. “When we talk about
has emerged as a hub for the trade, Africa lacks a preemi- buyer potential in Africa,” she adds, “there shouldn’t be any
nent art-market capital. doubt.”

54 55
Spotlight on Africa

Accra,
Ghana
Ghana was home to a number of tight-knit artist
communities, like the one known as the Akwa-
pim Six, before it gained independence from
Great Britain in 1957. But after Ghana’s first
president, Kwame Nkrumah, was overthrown
in 1966, government support for the arts di-
minished. At least, until now.
The country’s first-ever Venice Biennale
pavilion drew rave reviews this year. And back Economy Galleries and Institutions to Know
Ghana’s fortunes have been on the
in Accra, the celebrated Ghanaian-British archi- rise since the discovery of offshore oil
tect David Adjaye is transforming a 17th-century in 1992. The World Bank projects the GALLERY 1957

country’s economy will grow 7.6 percent A contemporary art gallery founded by engineer turned collector turned
castle into a major new museum. in 2019—but experts say that it must dealer Marwan Zakhem, it has two spaces in Accra’s Kempinski Hotel.
The country’s profile has also been boost- diversify for long-term sustainability. ANO GHANA

This art space was established by Ghanaian art historian Nana Oforiatta
ed by the success of such international art Tourism
Ayim, who also organized the country’s celebrated pavilion at this year’s
The budget for Ghana’s ministry of
stars as El Anatsui, Ibrahim Mahama, and tourism, culture, and creative arts rose
Venice Biennale.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (who, although born 120 percent between 2014 and 2018; it is NUBUKE FOUNDATION

expected to triple again by 2022. Currently undergoing an expansion, the prominent institution
in London, is of Ghanaian origin). Mahama re- gave early shows to major artists like El Anatsui.
Education
cently founded an artist-run project space, Look out for artists who attended
ARTISTS ALLIANCE GALLERY

A three-story space on Labadi Beach, it was originally set up to house

the Savannah Center for Contemporary Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science
the works of its owner, Ablade Glover, and now presents a mix of work
Clockwise from top left: curator
and Technology, the country’s top school
Nana Oforiatta Ayim; a detail of the
façade of the Nubuke Foundation;
in the city of Tamale, less than an hour’s flight for art, which boasts El Anatsui and
by Ghanaian artists as well as Kente cloths, African masks, and furniture.
Cape Coast Castle in Ghana
from Accra. Ibrahim Mahama as alumni.

56 57
 Spotlight on Africa

Artists
From left: Zohra Opoku, Rhododen-

Amoako Boafo Godfried Donkor

dron (2016); Amoako Boafo, Sun-
flower Shirt (2019); Godfried Donkor,
Anokye’s Dance (2017)
BORN: 1984 BORN: 1964

to Know

Zohra Opoku
BORN: 1976

WHAT TO KNOW

The German-Ghanaian artist, who won

the Armory Show’s inaugural Presents
prize for her solo booth in 2017, makes
hybrid textiles and photographs that
often depict contemporary Ghanaian
women in traditional dress, exploring WHAT TO KNOW WHAT TO KNOW

what it means to be a woman in the Boafo creates vivid portraits of black people living in Donkor, who splits his time between London and Accra,
African Muslim world. his adopted hometown of Vienna. He was brought is best known for his paintings and collages drawn from re-
to the attention of Roberts Projects gallery by his friend search into the history of slavery and intercontinental trade.
MOST WANTED Kehinde Wiley.
Screen prints on textiles and fabric MOST WANTED

MOST WANTED Paintings from his “From Slave to Champ” series from
GALLERY AFFILIATION Works from his “Black Diaspora” portrait series the early 1990s and his recent “Battle Royale: Last Man
Gallery 1957 (Accra); Mariane Ibrahim Standing” series, both of which explore the phenomenon
gallery (Chicago) GALLERY AFFILIATION of slaves being forced to box
Mariane Ibrahim gallery (Chicago);
PRICE RANGE Roberts Projects (Los Angeles) PRICE RANGE

$15,000 to $35,000 $18,700 to $37,000 for paintings; $10,000 to $12,400

PRICE RANGE for collages
UP NEXT $10,000 to $25,000
Opoku will have a solo show at Gallery GALLERY AFFILIATION

1957 in Accra this December, and she UP NEXT Gallery 1957 (Accra)
Accra

was invited to be one of the inaugural He will have work at Mariane Ibrahim’s
artists at Black Rock, Kehinde Wiley’s Expo Chicago presentation and a solo show UP NEXT

new residency program in Dakar. at her gallery in spring 2020. He currently has a solo show at Gallery 1957.

58 59
Spotlight on Africa

Addis Ababa,
Coptic art, shaped by the 1,500-year history of the Ethiopian Orthodox
Tewahedo Church, is one of the country’s major artistic influences and
continues to be practiced by numerous artisans. But the 20th century

Ethiopia
also witnessed three distinct artistic movements that remained popular
until the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974: a realistic, or “naïve,” style used
to depict glamorous Ethiopian society; abstraction, which incorporated
influences from Western Expressionism and Surrealism; and social re-
alism, which was political in subject matter and focused largely on urban
scenes and the struggling masses.
Despite the difficulty in obtaining art materials, which must be ei- People
ther imported from abroad or made at home, today’s artists work largely Home to more than 112 million
people, Ethiopia is the second-most
in paint, together with photography and sculpture using found objects. populous country in Africa.

Economy
According to the International Mon-
etary Fund, Ethiopia’s economy is
Galleries and Institutions to Know expected to grow 8.5 percent this fiscal
year, making it the fastest-growing
economy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

ALLE SCHOOL OF FINE ART & DESIGN

Ethiopia’s most important art school, it was founded in 1958, during

the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, and has educated the country’s
preeminent painters, sculptors, printmakers, and designers.

ADDIS FINE ART “A LOT OF PEOPLE USE ART

The most notable commercial gallery in the capital and its first white-cube FOR COMMERCIAL OR

art space, Addis regularly showcases graduates from the Alle School. PROPAGANDA PURPOSES,

It will open a new location in London’s Cromwell Place gallery hub in 2020. AND I HOPE THAT OUR

GOVERNMENT UNDERSTANDS

Clockwise from top left: Eyerusalem GURAMANE ART CENTER THE POWER OF SUPPORTING
Jiregna, The City of Saints XX (2017);
the Islamic Blue Mosque in Addis A gallery dedicated to emerging Ethiopian artists, it represents OUR ARTISTS AND PRESERVING
Ababa; Addis Fine Art founders
Mesai Haileleul & Rakeb Sile the vanguard of the country’s art scene. OUR CULTURE. WE NEED TO THINK

OF THE PAST IF WE WANT TO

ZOMA GO TO THE FUTURE.”

This sprawling museum, founded by artist Elias Sime and curator

Meskerem Assegued, opened in April 2019 and shows contemporary Melaku Belay, founder of
art from East Africa and abroad. the Fendika Cultural Center

60 61
 Spotlight on Africa

Artists
From left: Elias Sime,
NOISELESS (2019);
Tadesse Mesfin Dawit Abebe
Tadesse Mesfin, Pillars BORN: 1953 BORN: 1978
of Life: Market Day (2018);
Dawit Abebe, No. 2 Back-

to Know
ground 35 (2016)

Elias Sime
BORN: 1968

WHAT TO KNOW

Sime creates monumental works from

discarded technological components,
including salvaged motherboards and
electrical wires. This October, he will
receive the African Art Award from the
Smithsonian’s National Museum
of African Art.

GALLERY AFFILIATION

James Cohan Gallery (New York);

Grimm Gallery (Amsterdam, New York)

MOST WANTED

Works from his “Tightrope” series,

WHAT TO KNOW WHAT TO KNOW
which features electrical waste meticu-
Mesfin has spent the past 35 years teaching at the Abebe’s large paintings contain figures rendered in thick im-
lously woven into abstract compositions
Alle School of Fine Art, where he has influenced pasto, typically with their backs turned to the viewer. His work
reminiscent of aerial landscapes or
a generation of painters. explores such themes as privacy, alienation, and materiality.
textiles

GALLERY AFFILIATION GALLERY AFFILIATION

PRICE RANGE
Addis Fine Art (Addis Ababa) Kristin Hjellegjerde (London, Berlin)
$65,000 to $300,000

MOST WANTED MOST WANTED

UP NEXT
His recent series, “Pillars of Life,” which celebrates The “Mutual Identity” drawing series (2018) and his
Sime’s mid-career retrospective will be
the women who work as vendors in Ethiopian markets. “Background Painting” series (2015), which examines
traveling through 2021, appearing at the
It sold out at this year’s Art Dubai the relationship between history and technology
Wellin Museum of Art, the Akron Art
Addis Ababa

Museum, the Kemper Museum, and the

PRICE RANGE PRICE RANGE
Royal Ontario Museum. He will also
$24,000 to $35,000 $8,000 to $30,000
have a solo exhibition at the Saint Louis
Art Museum in 2020.
UP NEXT UP NEXT

Mesfin will participate in the 1-54 art fair in London Abebe will participate in the 1-54 art fair in London and
in October and will have a solo exhibition at Addis this year’s Karachi Biennale; he will also have a solo show
Fine Art’s new Cromwell Place location in May 2020. at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in November.

62 63
Spotlight on Africa

Cape Town,
Galleries and Institutions to Know

South Africa
GOODMAN GALLERY

One of the few art businesses established during the apartheid era, the 53-year-old
Johannesburg-based gallery with a commitment to politically engaged art is expanding
to London this fall.

STEVENSON

A regular at international art fairs, the contemporary art gallery has spaces in Cape
Town and Johannesburg as well as an office in Amsterdam.

ZEITZ MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART

The first major museum in Africa dedicated to contemporary African art displays the
collection of German philanthropist and ex-Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz alongside rotating
international art exhibitions.

In the early 20th century, much of the art A4 ARTS FOUNDATION

coming out of South Africa was European- Located in a three-story warehouse, this nonprofit center is dedicated to supporting
contemporary South African art.
influenced landscape painting and Impres-
sionism. Interestingly, the country’s art NORVAL FOUNDATION

Founded by the South African real estate investor Louis Norval in April 2018, South
history was also shaped by two female Africa’s second-oldest major private museum boasts a large collection of Modern South
artists who emerged during the 1930s— African art, a sculpture garden, and nature preserve.

Maggie Laubser and Irma Stern—who are

credited with incorporating Expressionism Population
There are 131 ultra-high-net-worth
into South African art. individuals who live in Cape Town,
The apartheid years (1948–94) coincided according to Knight Frank’s 2019
wealth report.
with a period of experimentation, with artists From left: Cape Town’s Atlantic
seaboard; Zeitz MOCAA Economy
William Kentridge and Marlene Dumas serv- Cape Town is South Africa’s second-
ing as forerunners of the country’s now-fertile wealthiest city after Johannesburg
—but it also has one of the highest
contemporary art scene. But black artists “ONE MUST NOT UNDERESTIMATE

THE PERSISTENT rates of inequality in the world.

suffered mightily from segregation and polit- PROVINCIALISM WE ENCOUNTER

ical turbulence. Today, Elana Brundyn, CEO AT INSTITUTIONS IN EUROPE

AND THE UNITED STATES.”

of the Norval Foundation, says, “what we are

Joost Bosland,
witnessing in Cape Town is the birth of a new director at Stevenson
art capital in Africa.”
64 65
 Spotlight on Africa

Artists
Simphiwe Ndzube Nicholas Hlobo Zanele Muholi
BORN: 1990 BORN: 1975 BORN: 1972

to Know

WHAT TO KNOW

The artist makes large-scale installations, primarily

out of ribbon, leather, wood, and rubber detritus, that WHAT TO KNOW

tackle themes of sexuality and gender identity as well A photographer and filmmaker who self-identifies as
WHAT TO KNOW as the history of South Africa and his own Xhosa culture. a “visual activist,” Muholi creates black-and-white images
The Los Angeles-based, Cape Town-born painter and depicting black LGBTQ+ communities. They recently
sculptor creates Surrealist depictions of life in post-apart- GALLERY AFFILIATION won this year’s Lucie Award for Outstanding Achieve-
heid South Africa. Stevenson (Cape Town, Johannesburg); Lehmann Maupin ment for Humanitarian Photography.
(New York, Hong Kong, Seoul)
GALLERY AFFILIATION GALLERY AFFILIATION

Stevenson (Cape Town, Johannesburg); Nicodim Gallery MOST WANTED Stevenson (Cape Town, Johannesburg); Yancey Richardson
(Los Angeles, Bucharest); Ever Gold Projects (San Francisco) Mixed-media works on linen incorporating ribbon, leather, (New York); Wentrup Gallery (Berlin)
and domestic objects
MOST WANTED MOST WANTED

His otherworldly works on linen, which combine such me- PRICE RANGE Black-and-white self-portraits in editions of eight
diums as acrylic, spray paint, collage, and found objects $20,000 to $120,000
PRICE RANGE
Cape Town

PRICE RANGE UP NEXT $5,000 to $30,000

$6,000 to $35,000 He was recently featured in the group show “Material
Insanity” at the Museum of African Contemporary UP NEXT

UP NEXT Art Al Maaden in Marrakech, and is included in the 10th Muholi’s work prominently marked the doorways in the
His work will be included in the Lyon Biennale when it edition of Lustwarande, an international sculpture exhibi- Arsenale at this year’s Venice Biennale. Their first large-scale
From left: Simphiwe Ndzube, Invita-
tion to my Voyage #2 (2019); Nicholas opens later this month. tion in the Netherlands running through October 20. retrospective will open at Tate Modern in London on April 29.
Hlobo, Ulwabelwano (2015); Zanele
Muholi, Bester I, Mayotte (2015)

66 67
Spotlight on Africa

Dakar,
Galleries
and Institutions
to Know

Senegal GALERIE CÉCILE FAKHOURY

A sleek space dedicated to con-

temporary African art, the gallery
opened in Côte d’Ivoire in 2012
and expanded to Dakar in 2018.

GALERIE ATISS

A six-floor space situated in a villa,

the gallery—established in 1996
by Aissa Dione—promotes Modern
and contemporary African art as
well as traditional textiles.

BLACK ROCK

Kehinde Wiley’s luxurious artist

residency in Dakar launched in April.

RAW MATERIAL COMPANY

This center for art and education

was founded by curator Koyo
Art is in Senegal’s DNA. Léopold Sédar Seng- Kouoh, who was recently named
hor, the country’s first president after achiev- the executive director and
chief curator of the Zeitz Museum
ing independence in 1960, invested as much of Contemporary Art Africa in
as 25 percent of the state’s budget in its Cape Town.

culture ministry. THE MUSEUM OF

Creativity flourished under his presiden- BLACK CIVILIZATIONS

Politics
The museum, which opened in
cy during a period between 1960 and 1980 December in a 150,000-square-
Senegal is among Africa’s most stable countries, having
experienced three peaceful political transitions since 1960.
known as l’École de Dakar, which was charac- foot structure, celebrates black
civilizations from across the globe. Resources
terized by state patronage. Dakar’s art scene Since 2014, discoveries of large oil and gas deposits
is also known for Laboratoire Agit’Art, a satiri- DAK’ART in Senegal have opened the country to energetic
Also known as the Dakar Biennale, international speculation.
cal and avant-garde art collective founded the 30-year-old event is Africa’s
Economy
in Dakar in 1973 by writer and performer Clockwise from top left: the Grand
Mosque in Dakar, Senegal; Dakar’s
most venerable art biennial.
The World Bank predicts Senegal’s economy will grow
Youssouf John. shoreline; Soumbedioune Bay
more than 6 percent annually over the coming years.

68 69
 Spotlight on Africa

Artists
From left: Omar Victor Diop,

Omar Ba Soly Cissé

Omar Ibn Saïd 1770-1864 (2014);
Omar Ba, Fruits, Masques, Insectes
(2018); Soly Cissé, Men and
Lives V (2018)
BORN: 1977 BORN: 1969

to Know

Omar Victor Diop

BORN: 1980

WHAT TO KNOW

Diop’s photographs of prominent figures WHAT TO KNOW

from Senegal’s cultural scene honor The artist, who splits his time between Dakar and Geneva,
the long tradition of African studio creates intricate mixed-media paintings that blur the line
photography. between figuration and abstraction while drawing on the WHAT TO KNOW

legacy of colonialism. Two of his works have come to auction A painter, sculptor, and draftsman, Cissé is best known
GALLERY AFFILIATION this year, both of them outperforming their high estimates. for abstract paintings in which heroic figures emerge from
MAGNIN-A (Paris), Jenkins Johnson scenes of chaos and destruction.
Gallery (San Francisco) GALLERY AFFILIATION

Galerie Templon (Paris, Brussels); Hales Gallery (London, GALLERY AFFILIATION

MOST WANTED New York) Sulger-Buel Gallery (London); Ethan Cohen Fine Arts
The “Diaspora” series (2014), which pays (New York)
tribute to significant Africans from MOST WANTED

the 16th to the 19th centuries, and the Paintings on cardboard MOST WANTED

“Liberty” series (2016), which reflects the Paintings from the series “Men and Lives” (2018)
history of Black protest movements. PRICE RANGE

$22,500 to $67,000 for paintings; $4,500 to $11,000 PRICE RANGE

PRICE RANGE for drawings Approximately $20,000 for paintings

$5,600 to $13,500
Dakar

UP NEXT UP NEXT

UP NEXT Ba has a solo show at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, The artist’s work will be at Sulger-Buel Gallery’s stand
His work will be included in the Fotofest running through November 10. at the 1-54 fair in London in October.
Biennial in Houston next spring.

70 71
Spotlight on Africa

Lagos, Nigeria
In the early 20th century, Lagos’s art scene
“WE HAVE HAD AN ART SCENE was dominated by Ben Enwonwu, who
FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

THE QUESTION IS WHETHER

developed a distinctly African response
THE SCENE WAS STRUCTURED to European Modernism. During the 1950s,
IN A WAY THAT THE

WESTERN ART WORLD COULD

different schools of art sprang up: The Zaria
Galleries and Institutions to Know ALIGN WITH.” Rebels fused Modernism with Nigerian forms,
Tokini Peterside,
while the more conventional Osogbo School
OMENKA GALLERY
founder and director of carried on Yoruba traditions. Two decades later,
Art X Lagos, West Africa’s
This contemporary art gallery is housed in the former home of Ben
first contemporary art fair
students at the University of Nigeria, including
Enwonwu, one of Africa’s most influential artists, and run by his son.
El Anatsui and Olu Oguibe, founded the Nsukka
LAGOS CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART Wealth group, which aimed to reinvent the traditional
This nonprofit hub for experimental art was founded in 2007 by curator Nigeria is home to more black billion-
Bisi Silva, who died earlier this year. El Anatsui has called the organization aires than any other country.
Igbo style.
and its educational initiatives “the biggest thing to happen to the scene.”
Economy
Even after Nigeria emerged from military
ARTHOUSE CONTEMPORARY
Nigeria’s economy is expected to grow rule in 1999, it suffered from the perception that
more slowly than other African na-
An auction house specializing in Modern and contemporary art from
tions because its oil industry is likely
it was dangerous and inhospitable. The tide
West Africa, it was founded by Indian-born Kavita Chellaram.
to stagnate in the face of regulatory began to turn in the mid-2000s, when a new
uncertainty.
SMO CONTEMPORARY crop of collectors and art spaces emerged. The
This contemporary art gallery also offers art advisory services. People
Home to 197 million people, Nigeria
country’s scene has been further boosted by the
AFRICAN ARTISTS’ FOUNDATION accounts for about 47 percent of West success of Nigerian-born Njideka Akunyili Cros-
A nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of Nigerian art, it organizes Africa’s population. It also has one
the annual National Art Competition.
From left: Gerald Machona, 7
Colonial Powers (2018); an aerial
view of Lagos of the largest populations of young
by, whose lush paintings are among the most
people in the world. sought-after works of contemporary art today.
72 73
Spotlight on Africa

Artists to
Emeka Ogboh Gerald Chukwuma From left: Emeka Ogboh, Spirit and
Matter (2018); Gerald Chukwuma,
Google Map 1 (2017); Otobong Nkan-
BORN: 1977 BORN: 1973 ga, Transformation (2014)

Know
Otobong Nkanga
BORN: 1974

WHAT TO KNOW

The Kano-born, Antwerp-based artist

WHAT TO KNOW
creates works inspired by Nigeria’s history,
The Enugu-born, Berlin-based sound artist participated in land, and politics in a wide variety of forms
both documenta 14 and Skulptur Projekte Münster in 2017 and materials. She won a special mention
without a gallery backing him—the only artist to do so. He at the Venice Biennale for her winding
was also shortlisted for the 2018 Hugo Boss Prize for his WHAT TO KNOW
Murano glass sculpture and works on paper
performances, sound installations, and food-based works Chukwuma creates intricate sculptures by painting, in the central exhibition.
that explore migration, the diaspora, and post-colonialism. burning, and chiseling wood and slate. His work examines
themes of politics and migration in Africa. MOST WANTED
GALLERY AFFILIATION Her vivid, almost futuristic tapestries,
Imane Farès (Paris) GALLERY AFFILIATION
which come in editions of five
Gallery 1957 (Accra); Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery
MOST WANTED (London, Berlin) PRICE RANGE
His “Sound Portraits,” which comprise speakers housed in $8,000 to $200,000
painted, striped boxes that hang on the wall like paintings MOST WANTED

and emit sonic portraits of Lagos His “Wrinkles” series (2017–19), which pays tribute to the his- GALLERY AFFILIATION
toric Igbo Landing site on St. Simons Island in Georgia, where Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo, Brussels,
PRICE RANGE one of the largest mass suicides of slaves took place in 1803 New York); In Situ-Fabienne Leclerc (Paris);
$22,500 to $100,000 Lumen Travo (Amsterdam)
PRICE RANGE

UP NEXT $9,300 to $25,000 for wood-slate sculptural works UP NEXT

An installation inspired by an Igbo village square is on view Nkanga has a solo show at Tate St. Ives
at the Cleveland Museum of Art through December 1. UP NEXT
through January 2020, a solo exhibition

Lagos
His work is also included in a group show about borders, The artist will have a solo show at Gallery 1957 in Accra at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town opening
“Walking Through Walls,” at the Martin-Gropius-Bau next August and participate in 1-54’s London edition via on November 19, and a residency at the
in Berlin through January 19. Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery. Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin.

74 75
Spotlight on Africa

Marrakech,
Morocco
During the mid-20th century, amid France’s
decolonization, two aesthetic trends emerged
in Morocco. The first, promoted by the
Tetouan School of Fine Arts, was influenced
by the aesthetic of southern Spain. The sec- Galleries and Institutions to Know
ond, represented by the Casablanca School of
Fine Arts, revolved around the young painters “MARRAKECH FIRMLY MUSEUM OF AFRICAN CONTEMPORARY ART AL MAADEN
REPRESENTS THE GATEWAY Marrakech’s first museum of African art, it was established in 2016.
Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Melehi, and Moham- OF MOROCCO TO AFRICA

med Chebaa, who incorporated Moroccan AND TO EUROPE.” YVES SAINT LAURENT MUSEUM

This museum dedicated to the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent
visual culture and architecture into their geo- Meriem Berrada, curator and his love of Morocco opened in 2017.
metric and abstract works.
Today, the scene is home to a variety of Education
DAVID BLOCH GALLERY

A gallery of international art, it is designed to resemble a minimalist

Keep an eye out for artists who have
genres, from street art to performance and gone through the prestigious and
New York loft.

film, of which photography may be the most competitive Jardin Rouge residency
GALERIE 127
at the Montresso Art Foundation.
prominent. The city also boasts a more devel- This gallery specializes in work by Moroccan and international photographers.
Economy
oped gallery and museum infrastructure than The International Monetary Fund’s RIAD YIMA

many other cities on the continent, as well as latest report projects that Morocco’s The gallery, shop, and tearoom was established by the photographer
Clockwise from top left: an aerial
economic growth rate will reach Hassan Hajjaj, whose hip-hop-inspired, color-saturated portraits have earned
its own art fair, 1-54, founded by Moroccan view of Marrakech; Islamic Art
Museum of Marrakech at Majorelle
4.5 percent by 2024, up from 3.1 him the moniker “the Andy Warhol of Marrakech.”
Garden; the Museum of Contempo-
entrepreneur Touria El Glaoui. rary African Art in Al Maaden
percent in 2018.

76 77
 Spotlight on Africa

Artists
Hassan Hajjaj Safaa Erruas Younès Rahmoun
BORN: 1961 BORN: 1976 BORN: 1975

to Know
WHAT TO KNOW

Hajjaj is perhaps the city’s best-known

artist, famous for his vivid photo-
graphs of impossibly hip subjects
ranging from stylish locals to stars like
Madonna and Cardi B.

GALLERY AFFILIATION

The Third Line (Dubai)

MOST WANTED

“Kesh Angels” (2010–ongoing), a series

dedicated to the city’s young veiled
women bikers, and the “My Rockstars”
series (1999–ongoing)

PRICE RANGE

$7,000 to $40,000

WHAT TO KNOW
UP NEXT
The Tetouan-based artist creates intricate sculptures
A large-scale retrospective is on view
based on domestic furniture and almost exclusively WHAT TO KNOW
at the Maison Européenne de la Photog-
uses the color white. Based in Tetouan, Rahmoun creates meditative, ethereal
raphie in Paris through November 17.
videos, drawings, sculptures, and photographs that draw
MOST WANTED on his Islamic faith.
Her delicate mixed-media installations incorporating
domestic materials, such as Double Voie (2019), a work MOST WANTED

made in metal wire and paper to present a snapshot Meditative multimedia installations like Markib-Man-
of life under the 20-year reign of King Mohammed VI zil-Mawja (2015)

PRICE RANGE GALLERY AFFILIATION

$800 to $18,000 Galerie Imane Farès (Paris)

GALLERY AFFILIATION PRICE RANGE

L’Atelier 21 (Casablanca, Morocco); Officine dell’Immagine $6,000 to $100,000

Marrakech

(Milan); 50 Golborne (London)

UP NEXT

UP NEXT The artist will present a performance at the Smith College

She is participating in the Biennale Rabat, through Museum of Art on September 19 ahead of a larger solo show
From left: Hassan Hajjaj,
Mimz (2013); Safâa Erruas, December 18, and will be represented at 1-54 in London there in 2022. In October, he will debut a new installation in the
Inaccessible (2014); Younès
Rahmoun, Jamor (2015) through 50 Golborne. Tuileries Gardens in Paris as part of FIAC’s public art program.

78 79
The
Incredible
True Story
of artnet

How Hans Neuendorf changed the art

business forever—and against all odds
—by bringing it online

by Andrew Goldstein

80 81
The Story of artnet

It’s impossible to understand the evolu-

tion of the art business into a global
industry over the past three decades
without taking into account the role
of artnet.
Founded in 1989 as a database of
art prices—a groundbreaking innovation
in a marketplace long defined by obscu-
rantism and information asymmetry—
1 artnet was the first art site to go online;
its news platform, artnet Magazine,
became the second-ever online publi-
cation (after Slate); its gallery network
served as many galleries’ first online
presence; and its auction platform
led the way for legacy auction houses
to enter the digital era.
With artnet’s emphasis on transpar-
ency and efficiency, the company did
The office of artnet in 1995
much to create the conditions for the 2Germany’s first Pop Art show, at
Now 82, Neuendorf was an outsize presence in the art world even before art-
headlong modernization of the art mar- net. Coming of age in Hamburg amid the wreckage of World War II and entering
Galerie Hans Neuendorf, in 1965

ket. And none of this ever would have the art business while still in his teens, he organized the first Pop Art show in
Germany, championed important artists (like Georg Baselitz) in the face of wide-
happened if not for the stubborn, quix- spread skepticism, single-handedly brought Sotheby’s to Frankfurt, and created
otic, and deeply idealistic vision of art- a highly successful art fund. In starting artnet, Neuendorf overcame an unceasing
parade of crises and challenges, keeping the company afloat by selling artworks
net’s founder, Hans Neuendorf. to fund operations and maintaining a (he might say naïve) conviction that success
was always right around the corner.
To mark artnet’s 30th anniversary, and to better grasp the historical context
that gave rise to the company, artnet News editor-in-chief Andrew Goldstein sat
down with Neuendorf in his corner office atop the Woolworth Building to talk
about his life’s work. The following interview has been condensed from a sprawl-
ing four-hour conversation; a more extensive version will be published in several
installments online.

82 83
The Story of artnet

You were born in Hamburg in 1937, casso. I took them home and sold them Cologne—and we said we’d all come So one person would have one set electronic inventories where he could
at a time when the German war ma- to my dentist. This was in the ‘50s in together once a year so that collectors of prices, and another person would pair the prices with images. I asked
chine was cranking up and the clouds Germany, when money was first being could go to one place and see what is have their own different set of pric- if I could make an investment.
of World War II were gathering. made—mostly by dentists, doctors, available. Altogether it became around es. As a dealer, how would you price Eventually, you became the largest
It was before the early days of World and lawyers, who had the desire for art, 22 galleries, all from Germany. the artworks you were selling? shareholder in the company.
War II, and I saw a good deal of it. I saw which had been forbidden in Germany Two years later, [Ernst] Beyeler Well, you would talk to other dealers This happened over several years. I
the broken army walking home from for a long time. So, I did quite well. The thought this would be smart to do in and to clients who had been around was raising money for artnet through
Russia in rows of four. They camped price difference, on retail, between Basel. At the time, Germans were bring- to other galleries in the market, and the gallery by selling paintings. The
out in the woods near our home. As Germany and Paris was like 50 percent. ing their black money to Basel to deposit somehow you’d have to figure out a company—which at first was called the
a boy, I would trade with the soldiers— So what I was buying for 100 marks I it there, so he thought it would be a price. Then, when something was sold, Centrox Corporation—hardly had any
it was my first attempt at buying and could sell easily for 200 marks. And good idea to sell them some art, because you would have a firm price point and revenue, because technically, it didn’t
selling something. that was how I financed my studies. art is liquid, and you can ship it. could start from there. really work.
How did you become interested in art? Did you think of art as a career path? What do you mean by “black money”? Let’s talk about artnet. Somewhere Why not?
When I was 10, I would visit the book- I wasn’t thinking of a career—I was just When you have a business, you can in the late 1980s, you met an unusu- This was before the internet, so we
store at the train station on my way to following what I liked. But I started to always do a little bit of business on the al collector named Pierre Sernet. were making the database available to
school. There were tiny little books— think it was embarrassing to go to see side and take cash. Then the cash will How did that happen? anyone who was interested through
the size of a matchbox—and they had people and unpack the prints at their accumulate, and you say, “Well, what I had a stand at the FIAC art fair in our own proprietary data lines that
colorful reproductions of artworks home, and so I thought, “I must have a do I do with it?” You can’t buy prop- Paris, and there was this guy standing we had to rent from CompuServe
on the cover. I thought they were was gallery.” erty, because you have to prove where in front of a little table with a com- and Infonet. In many cases, the data
fascinating. For Christmas, I got Knau- How old were you at this time? the cash came from. So you haul it to puter on it, trying to sell something. It packages would travel fine through
er’s Lexicon of Modern Art, and it had I was 23 or 24 when I started the gal- Switzerland. It was tax evasion. And turned out to be a price database. our fiberglass lines but not the last few
biographies of all the big artists, like lery, and by then I was getting a little then to convert it into paintings was a Pierre was a collector of 19th-cen- steps into the house, because that was
Chagall, Matisse, Picasso. I read that bored with the École de Paris, which perfect business idea. Beyeler thought tury Japanese photography, and he was mostly old copper telephone wires.
until I knew it by heart, practically. was most of what I was selling. And so, at least. That was how Art Basel always angry that he couldn’t learn The data packages got stuck there—
When did you begin to think about then news arrived from America about came about. what anything cost. Traditionally, there they couldn’t pass through because
buying your own works of art? Pop Art. I immediately went to Paris When you were starting out, how were price books that were printed, but they didn’t have enough room.
My father had a friend, a Russian and talked to [famed Pop Art dealer] were the prices of artworks desig- obviously they had very few images in
cellist. He lent him some money, and Ileana Sonnabend, and that led to the
before he went away, the guy left him first Pop Art show in Germany, with
nated? You were saying that you
would go to Paris and buy artworks
there, and without images, it’s useless.
So he invented a way to work with
4Hans Neuendorf with Joey Graham
a big trunk of things as security. Years paintings by all the great masters. and then sell them in Germany for
afterward, I found the trunk in the How did you manage to bring these much higher prices. How did people
basement. I opened it up, and there I artworks into Germany?
3 found a [Lyonel] Feininger. And I knew That was kind of adventurous. A friend
know what was a fair value?
Pricing information was always the
what it was, because I had read about of mine had a trucking business and critical point. Nobody knew what
all the artists. lent me a small truck that he used for anything was worth. So, at the art fairs,
What did you do? deliveries in town. When we got to people would go around with their little
I showed it to one of the two art dealers Paris, we went to Ileana, and we rode pads, taking notes. Often, they didn’t ask
in Hamburg, and he offered me 3,000 away with these paintings on a rickety for prices because they wanted to buy
marks, which was like a huge fortune. truck. She didn’t blink an eye. something—they asked because they just
That’s how I started. Moving ahead to 1967, you helped wanted to know what their collection
How old were you at the time? found Art Cologne, the first art fair was worth, or how much they should pay
I was 18 or so. I gave my father the ever, as the Kölner Kunstmarkt. What another dealer for a similar piece. Every-
money, and he lent me 300 of the 3,000 was the impetus behind the fair? one was doing their own pricing research
marks, so I hitchhiked to Paris and We were all separated in various all the time. That’s why I thought it might
Kunstmarkt Köln, which later
became Art Cologne, in 1967 bought some prints by Matisse and Pi- cities—in Stuttgart and Munich and be good to do a price database.

84 85
The Story of artnet

What made you believe in the thing on one floor and selling it for a This was in 1999.
company, despite these significant profit one floor up. These runners have We were the 100th company to go pub-
obstacles? always existed in the art trade, because lic in that segment of the German stock
When I saw the electronic images, I dealers don’t talk to other dealers. market, which was called the Neuer
thought, “This is bound to be very im- A lot of these middlemen went Markt. It’s mostly internet companies
portant for the art world.” It seemed so out of business after artnet, because and things like that. There was a lot of
clear to me that I still don’t understand they were using small price differenc- speculation going on.
why nobody else thought so. A German es to make a living, and all of a sudden After you went public at the height
publication once asked me what the that wasn’t so easy anymore. People of the dot-com bubble, the bubble
biggest mistake of my life was, and it were upset. burst. What was that like?
was to mistake a clear vision for close Because people were capitalizing We had a lot of problems. There was
proximity. Because, you know, I always on the inefficiency of the market- hostility from the start against an art
thought we were almost there—that place, and you were making it more company going public—people thought
everybody would understand it imme- efficient. we shouldn’t be a listed company.
diately—and that wasn’t the case. Yes, the market was completely ineffi- When we came out, we had a very high
If the product didn’t work, how did cient, and the runners had been doing price because eBay and others were
you get people to pay for it? a good job of improving that a little bit. getting high prices, and the banks who
Perseverance. Patience. And the But we wanted a very different degree bought the stock in order to distribute
internet. of efficiency. it to their customers flipped it. So a day
Going to the core of artnet, the price Eventually, you entered a phase of after we went to the stock market, a
database, how did you originally tremendous success. Tell me about packet of 50,000 shares came down the
obtain the pricing data? how you took the company public. pike. And then the whole price started
We just took it from the auction cata- I was in New York trying to raise to unravel. When I had done my road-
logues. Then Sotheby’s and Christie’s money, and a young sales guy working show, I had talked to all of the invest-
started complaining about it, and they for us said, “I know someone at the ment banks, and they all said, “We’re
each came over with a delegation of Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Can I come going to keep this stock and make sure
lawyers and their general counsel and by and bring him in?” I thought, “This that it gets to the right hands.” Bullshit.
said, “No, you can’t do that.” And I is not going to come to anything.” They sold it right away.
said, “Yes, we can do that.” And then But I talked to them anyway. Fast-forward to 2012, and all of a
they asked their lawyers, and their Two months later, they came back sudden other businesses, like Artsy,
lawyers told them they didn’t have any with these two giants—six-foot-five Artspace, and Paddle8, started
copyright. It was public information, investment bankers—who said that coming into the field. The online art
so anyone could take it. They were not their bank was interested in taking marketplace suddenly became a hot
happy at all. our company public in Germany. We thing. What did you make of that?
What impact did the artnet Price Da- had tried to go public in New York, Yes, we had the good fortune of Artsy
tabase have on the market in these too, but everybody there wanted big and other competitors who tried to
early days? deals, $120 million or something like nibble away at the fringes of our busi-
The fact is, we put a lot of dealers out that, and we were just hoping to get ness and take part of it. That certainly
of business. There is a building on $20 million somehow—completely hurt our business, at least to a degree,
57th Street and Madison, the Fuller underestimating what it would cost even though ultimately they didn’t suc-
Building, where there used to be many to build the company. But those kids ceed with it. But all of a sudden, every-
galleries, and there were traders who came through, and the bankers had a body was talking about the online art
would take the elevator up and down financial model, entered all the infor- business, and that gave us credibility.
5A snapshot of the artnet Price and do business between the galleries mation, and made a presentation for Ultimately, it was to our advantage that
Database in 1995 on the different floors, buying some- the stock market. they came along. Had they not arrived,

86 87
 we would have had to invent them. I think the flow of money into the
A big competitor with lots of money market is really damaging, because
6 gives the whole enterprise credibility. nowadays it’s not the quality of the
Today, the art market has exploded. painting that determines the price, but
You could argue that artnet Price the price that determines the quality.
Database, in making the market What decides value now is popularity
more transparent to a global and the credibility given by a price de-
audience, has been instrumental termined by competition between rich
The Story of artnet
in the extraordinary spread of the people over trophies. So you have many
marketplace around the world. very expensive paintings that are not
I think you could go even further. very valuable, in my opinion, and you
The sky-high prices we see today— have a lot of artists that are completely
$100 million and more for a painting underrated because they haven’t gone
—would have been impossible without into this spiral.
the database. Because when you have Do you think this wouldn’t have
a price comparison, you always can happened without artnet and
7 muster the courage to go 10 or 15 the Price Database?
9Hans Neuendorf and his son, Jacob We need to create an efficient at large that determines what’s good,
percent higher. So within 10 years, My way of operating my gallery is gone marketplace. Once that’s there, differ- what should be expensive. And that’s
Pabst, now the company’s CEO
the price will have doubled or tripled, forever. The art world changed com- ent structures will evolve. For instance, a wholly new situation. It’s as if you
just because you have comparables. pletely. To what degree the database I consider art fairs to be very harmful. introduced democracy. This used
Before that, people were completely helped or didn’t help, I don’t know. But The art fairs you helped to invent. to be an elitist enterprise, and now
in the dark about the value of paint- when it comes to the very high prices, Yes. Because galleries are starving it’s a democratic enterprise.
ings—there was only party talk, you I think that wouldn’t have happened because they have to pay these fairs. Is that good?
know, “How much do you think I without artnet. And even the art fairs aren’t succeeding I don’t think so. A lot of people like
could get for that?” People also used As the art industry has evolved, in being very profitable. You can’t un- art and want to be involved in art,
to set prices based on comparisons to your company has evolved as well. derstand art when you cherry-pick all but art is elitist. Art requires education
reasonable things, like houses, cars, et The company’s auction business these things and put them in booths. and knowledge.
cetera. For a while, people thought a has been relaunched, for instance. That is why we need to reestablish Do you have conflicted feelings
good painting should cost as much How do you feel about where the rightful place of the galleries in the about what you have achieved
as a luxury car. When artnet gave them artnet is today?
8 real comparables, all of a sudden art I’m very upbeat about the company.
market, because they are really provid-
ing the communication between the
with artnet?
Mainly because I don’t know where
was free to go as high as it wanted to go. Having a company like artnet doing artists and the public. If you give them it’s going. I don’t know the future.
It used to be a boutique market run auctions where you can sell an an online marketplace, they will know Remarkably, it seems as if the
by connoisseurs and specialists, artwork you bought five weeks where to sell things that they can’t sell efficient art world you hope to
but with the pricing data, things ago at reasonable rates and liquidate within their local community. This way bring about is tantalizingly close—
were able to open up to people in it, that can make a big difference. everyone would be operating globally that only a few obstacles need to
finance who knew next to nothing Right now, liquidity is completely but situated in their local context. I think be overcome, like that final stretch
about art but who knew about num- missing in the market because the that might be a healthy way of doing it. of copper wire that prevented
bers and projections. galleries and the big auction houses Do you miss the old way the art busi- artnet’s data from reaching its
Exactly. It gave them confidence. have built a wall, and ordinary ness used to operate, before artnet? subscribers in its early days.
Today, artnet has helped change people can’t get through it. That No, I don’t miss it. It definitely had bad How far off do you think the future
the art world you knew as a dealer in wall will break down. I’m absolutely flaws. It was easier to make money. But you envision is today?
Hamburg into an industry defined sure of it. And when that happens, the tastemaking ability and authority I think it’s around the corner. [Laughs.]
From top: Hans Neuendorf in 1995;
artnet’s office that same year; and by stratospheric prices. How do you it will attract a lot of buyers, because has been taken away from the critics Well, that’s the fun, you know. We are
the company’s office today in the
Woolworth Building in Manhattan feel about that change? they will have less risk. and the dealers, and it’s now the public in the middle of it.

88 89
... and Now
by Julia Halperin Global Fine Art Sales Totals vs. Lots Sold Total Fine Art Sales by Country
January–June, 2013–2019 January–June, 2013–2019
 

for a Look
at the Data! For the first time in several years, the number of artworks
sold at auction is on the rise (up 12.2 percent from the equiv-
alent period last year), while the cumulative value of total
Which political crisis has hurt the art market more, Brexit
or the U.S.-China trade war? The answer appears to be
Brexit. The U.K. saw its auction sales plummet 24 percent
sales is falling (down 15.7 percent from the first half of 2018). in the first six months of 2019, while China experienced only
What does this mean? The average work of art has become a 10.5 percent dip. China also generated $5.5 million more
less expensive. That dip is due largely to a contraction at at auction over this period than the U.K. “If there is a trade-
the top end of the market, where sales of trophy works war effect, it’s not totally obvious,” Mandel says.
valued at $10 million and up have dropped off, causing the Meanwhile, total auction sales in the United States fell
average price to shrink. 18 percent from the equivalent period last year, but the
The situation isn’t dire yet: Total auction sales are still country still maintains pole position in the global market
above where they were in the first six months of 2016 and —and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. “If you have
2017. Looking ahead, the market’s health will likely depend a $100 million work, you will sell it in New York,” says
on the fate of the global economy. Some forecasters are Jeff Rabin, the cofounder of Artvest. In the future, he says,
predicting major turbulence in Germany, China, and the “I expect the U.S. to extend its dominance over China
United States, while others—including Benjamin Mandel, and the U.K.”
a global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management—don’t
anticipate that things will get much worse. “You’d expect
payback from the fast growth of the past two years,” Mandel
says. “We expect things to stabilize from here.”

“Collector-investors who don’t

Sit back and enjoy these want to pay income tax
visual representations are sitting on works right now”
of where the art market
is headed
90 91
Data Dive

Fine Art and Decorative Art by Continent Looking ahead, all eyes are on Sotheby’s to see how its $3.7 Total Sales by Genre The Impressionist and Modern market shrunk by a quarter
January–June, 2019 billion acquisition by Bidfair USA, a holding company owned by January–June, 2013–2019 in the first half of the year, the largest contraction suffered
French telecommunications tycoon Patrick Drahi, will affect the by any category. Why? Because it’s the sector most affected
auction landscape. The sale, which will take the publicly traded by the drop in ultra-pricey lots. The average price of an
company private, is expected to be completed by December. Impressionist and Modern work sold at auction in the first
half of 2019 plummeted 35 percent from the equivalent
period last year. (It now stands at $52,107.) By contrast,
the average price for a postwar and contemporary work
Total Sales by Price Band
was more stable, dropping just 12 percent, to $48,051,
January–June, 2013–2019
while the average price for an Old Master dipped 17 percent,
to $43,274.
But don’t worry too much about the upper reaches of
Even though North America experienced a 14.5 percent the Imp-Mod market: the $10 million-and-up segment still
drop in total sales, it remains by far the world’s largest exceeded the $1 billion mark, keeping it above 2016 and
Old Masters, Impressionist & Modern, and
market, with $3.5 billion worth of fine and decorative art 2017 levels.
Postwar & Contemporary by Percent Price Band
sold at auction in the first six months of the year. Works (A note on methodology: Our categories don’t always
January–June, 2019
on offer there were also considerably more likely to find follow auction-house distinctions. Because they were
buyers. The continent’s sell-through rate was 74 percent, born before 1910, for example, Willem de Kooning and
compared with 61 percent in Europe and 66 percent in Asia. Francis Bacon are included in our Modern category, even
though they are usually offered in postwar and contempo-
The data here offers good news for those selling affordable
rary sales at auction.)
art—and troubling news for everyone else. Every segment of
the market contracted in the first half of this year except for the
Total Fine Art Sales by Auction House $10,000-and-under bracket, which grew 10.5 percent over the
January–June, 2013–2019 equivalent period in 2018. The most notable drop came at the top:
sales of work priced over $10 million tumbled by 35 percent.
Experts attribute this turnabout to a prevailing
feeling of caution in a moment of economic uncertainty.
Plus, since big-ticket works are increasingly going
to their guarantors with little competition, consignors
have become more inclined to sell privately rather
than in a public auction, according to Suzanne Gyorgy, Top 100 Artists by Nationality Buyers are equally hungry for work by American and
Citi Private Bank’s global head of art advisory January–June, 2019 Chinese artists. The U.S. and China are tied for the largest
and finance. share of the 100 best-selling artists at auction in the first
Another factor is the elimination of 1031 exchanges half of 2019. Artists from the two countries represent 23
The gap between Christie’s and Sotheby’s has narrowed under the new U.S. tax code. The handy loophole, which percent of the list each. On the Chinese side, Zhang Daqian,
for the first time in several years, with both auction houses the government closed this year, had previously allowed one of China’s most important ink painters, and Wu Guan-
posting just over $2 billion in art sales in the first half of investors to avoid capital-gains tax by using the proceeds zhong, regarded as the founder of Chinese Modernism,
2019. Christie’s revenue slump is understandable consider- from the sale of an artwork or works to purchase another both cracked the top 10. Among American artists, Jeff Koons
ing that last year’s Rockefeller estate sale, which netted over similar work within a short period of time. and Robert Rauschenberg—whose work set artist records
$800 million, was a once-in-a-lifetime market event—and, “Collector-investors who don’t want to pay income this past spring—both made strong totals, as did Andy
anyway, the house still managed to maintain a $132.5 mil- tax are sitting on works right now,” waiting for an alterna- Warhol. French artists came in third place, with a share
lion lead over rival Sotheby’s. Perennial third-place finisher tive to 1031 exchanges to surface, says Michael Plummer, of 20 percent.
Phillips saw its total sales plummet nearly 25 percent in the the cofounder of Artvest. “That may affect the quality
first half of the year after two straight years of major gains. of consignments in the evening sales.”

92 93
 Data Dive

Who Are the Most Bankable Artists? Impressionist & Modern

See the 10 best-selling artists in each genre for the first half of 2019.
Artist Life Lots Sold Lots Offered Sell-Through Rate Total Sales

1 Pablo Picasso 1881–1973 1702 2046 83% $255,587,150

2 Claude Monet 1840–1926 22 25 88% $251,268,572

3 Paul Cézanne 1839–1906 14 20 70% $98,450,439

4 Francis Bacon 1909–1992 60 72 83% $93,637,689

5 Amedeo Modigliani 1884–1920 17 21 81% $85,017,679

6 Mark Rothko 1903–1970 7 8 88% $79,980,445

7 René Magritte 1898–1967 55 94 59% $76,201,372

8 Marc Chagall 1887–1985 438 651 67% $54,815,967

9 Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841–1919 135 175 77% $54,219,882

10 Alexander Calder 1898–1976 176 222 79% $49,152,877

Auctioneer Oliver Barker at

Sotheby’s in New York on May 2019

European Old Masters Postwar

Artist Life Lots Sold Lots Offered Sell-Through Rate Total Sales Artist Life Lots Sold Lots Offered Sell-Through Rate Total Sales

1 Jan van Hemessen 1500–1566 3 3 100% $10,526,332 1 Andy Warhol 1928–1987 715 867 82% $150,303,643

2 Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun 1755–1842 6 6 100% $8,702,150 2 Zao Wou-Ki 1920–2013 194 226 86% $144,982,358

3 Peter Paul Rubens 1577–1640 4 5 80% $8,268,093 3 Robert Rauschenberg 1925–2008 102 133 77% $90,955,766

4 Juan van der Hamen y León 1596–1632 1 1 100% $6,517,500 4 David Hockney b. 1937 230 248 93% $89,101,369

5 Annibale Carracci 1560–1609 5 5 100% $6,281,277 5 Roy Lichtenstein 1923–1997 226 269 84% $84,819,899

6 Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael 1566–1638 1 1 100% $5,944,000 6 Gerhard Richter b. 1932 147 185 79% $63,526,989

7 Jan van de Cappelle 1624–1679 1 1 100% $4,815,000 7 Yayoi Kusama b. 1929 381 437 87% $54,357,877

8 Rembrandt van Rijn 1606–1669 331 378 88% $4,748,214 8 Frank Stella b. 1936 77 92 84% $50,878,098

9 Guido Reni 1575–1642 5 5 100% $3,785,119 9 Louise Bourgeois 1911–2010 27 33 82% $44,743,784

10 Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky 1817–1900 6 6 100% $3,759,504 10 Ed Ruscha b. 1937 90 108 83% $28,519,085

94 95
 drive
Data Dive

Contemporary

decisions
Artist Life Lots Sold Lots Offered Sell-Through Rate Total Sales

1 Jeff Koons b. 1955 110 137 80% $103,837,056

2 KAWS b. 1974 435 480 91% $70,559,769

3 Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960–1988 44 57 77% $65,645,338

with data
4 Christopher Wool b. 1955 29 42 69% $34,913,040

5 Yoshitomo Nara b. 1959 166 206 81% $24,320,041

6 Keith Haring 1958–1990 218 294 74% $21,926,605

7 George Condo b. 1957 62 77 81% $21,595,985

8 Albert Oehlen b. 1954 12 18 67% $19,154,397

9 Cecily Brown b. 1969 17 19 89% $15,664,397

10 Jenny Saville b. 1970 5 5 100% $15,576,882

Ultra-Contemporary

Artist Born Lots Sold Lots Offered Sell-Through Rate Total Sales

1 Jonas Wood 1977 42 58 72% $14,941,109

2 Adrian Ghenie 1977 9 10 90% $13,178,733

3 Dana Schutz 1976 12 13 92% $6,792,287

4 Harold Ancart 1980 13 14 93% $3,104,551 The artnet Price Database is the industry’s most
5 Hao Liang 1983 3 4 75% $2,507,276 trusted resource with over 12 million auction records
6 Jia Aili 1979 4 5 80% $2,409,922
vetted by a team of dedicated analysts. Relied on by
advisors, specialists, collectors and journalists, the
7 Rashid Johnson 1977 9 9 100% $2,209,810
Price Database delivers business-critical information
8 Lynette Yiadom-Boakye 1977 3 3 100% $1,852,307
to drive your transactions.
9 Ayako Rokkaku 1982 39 40 98% $1,663,114

10 Oscar Murillo 1986 12 15 80% $1,587,365 artnet.com/price-database

96 97
Methodology artnet News EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Andrew Goldstein

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

AND EDITOR OF ARTNET

INTELLIGENCE

Julia Halperin

ART BUSINESS EDITOR

Tim Schneider

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Caroline Goldstein

Contributors Cristina Ruiz

Eileen Kinsella

Rebecca Anne Proctor

artnet Price VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS

Ning Lu
This report reflects auction results from 471 auction houses All sales prices are adjusted to include the buyer’s premi-
Database
SENIOR DATA ANALYST
worldwide from January 1 to June 30, 2019. To consider how um. Price data from previous years has not been adjusted for
Robert Cacharani
this year’s results stacked up to previous years, we com- inflation. All results are logged in the currency native to the
pared them with the same numbers from the equivalent auction house where the sale took place, then converted to JUNIOR ANALYST

period from 2013 through 2018. U.S. dollars based on the exchange rate on the day of the sale. Michaela Ben Yehuda
artnet’s Fine Art and Design Database includes fine We defined artistic categories as follows: “European
art objects such as paintings, photographs, prints, and Old Masters” covers European artists born from 1250 to
sculpture by artists ranging from Old Masters to contem- 1820; “Old Masters” covers artists born from 1250 to 1820
porary living artists. The Decorative Art Database contains from any country; “Impressionist & Modern” concerns Production ART DIRECTOR

antiques, antiquities, and collectibles. Both databases only artists born in any country except China between 1821 Lucas Albrecht
include items with a low estimate of $500 and above. and 1910; “postwar” concerns artists born in any country
DESIGNER
Every single lot included in the artnet Price Database except China between 1911 and 1944; “contemporary”
Hannah Nathans
is verified against auction catalogues or directly with the covers artists born in any country from 1945 to 1974; and
auction houses and then categorized by a team of multilin- “ultra-contemporary” covers artists born after 1974. To PHOTO EDITOR

gual art history specialists to ensure the highest level of avoid anomalies, all genre breakdowns in the “Data Dive” Amanda Perez
accuracy and allow for detailed data analysis. We only in- section exclude China.
COPY EDITOR
clude Chinese auction houses that have been vetted by the Notes on geographic terms: Oceania covers auction
Elizabeth Ungar
China Association of Auctioneers, a national association in houses located in Australia and New Zealand. North
China that is seeking to standardize the auction industry. America covers auction houses in the U.S., Canada, and
This report reflects the numbers in artnet’s Price Database Mexico. China includes results from both the mainland
as of July 16, 2019. and Hong Kong.

98 99
IMAGE CREDITS
What I’m Buying & Why How the Art World Became the Art Industry African Art Market of Contemporary African Art in Al Maaden. Photo:
Collector Dean Valentine. Photo: Stefanie Keenan/ Saleroom at “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” Curator Nana Oforiatta-Ayim, courtesy ANO. Cape Getty Images. Hassan Hajjaj, My Rockstars series,
Getty Images. Portrait of Alan Lo, courtesy Alan photo: rune hellestad/Getty Images. Damien Hirst, Coast Castle in Ghana. Photo: Natalija Gormalova/ Mimz, 2013, Courtesy of the artist and The Third
Lo. Nadim Abbas, Human Rhinovirus 14 (2016) at Your Beauty (2015). Courtesy of Sotheby’s. KAWS: Getty Images. The Nubuke Foundation, courtesy Line Safaa Erruas, Inaccessible (2014). Courtesy
Duddell’s London. Courtesy Alan Lo. Mihail Lari in Holiday in Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong, © AllRights- Nubuke Foundation. Zohra Opoku, Rhododendron L’Atelier 21. Younès Rahmoun, Jamor (2015).
California. Photo: Donato Sardella/Getty Images. Reserved. Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Dr. Gachet (2016). Courtesy Gallery 1957. Amoako Boafo, Courtesy Imane Farès.
artwork, clockwise: Glenn Ligon, Untitled (America) (1890). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. Pablo Picas- Sunflower Shirt (2019). Courtesy Mariane Ibrahim
(2018); EJ Hill and Texas Isaiah, Victory Laps (Marie so, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932). Courtesy Gallery. Godfried Donkor, Anokye’s Dance I (2017). The Incredible True Story of artnet
Fegan Preschool) (2018); Willem de Kooning, Christie’s Images Ltd. Francis Bacon, Three Studies Courtesy Gallery 1957. Eyerusalem Jirenga, The Hans Neuendorf, photo: Taylor Dafoe. artnet’s of-
Landing Place (1970–71). All images courtesy of of Lucian Freud (1969). Courtesy Christie’s Images City of Saints XX (2017). Courtesy Addis Fine Art. fices in 1995 © artnet. Germany’s first Pop Art show,
Mihail Lari. Carole Server. Photo: Getty Images. Ltd. Pablo Picasso, Garçon à la pipe (1905). Courte- Portrait of Addis Fine Art founders, courtesy Addis at Galerie Hans Neuendorf, in 1965. Courtesy Hans
Arjan Martins, Entre Tempos Distópicos (2019); sy Sotheby’s. Audience at the first Kunstmarkt Köln, Fine Art. Islamic Blue Mosque in Addis Ababa, Neuendorf. Kunstmarket Köln (Art Cologne) in 1967.
Dana Schutz, Carpool (2016); Richard Aldrich, Photo: Peter Fischer Lu Yang at Art Basel in Hong photo: Edwin Remsberg/Getty Images. Elias Courtesy Art Cologne. Hans Neuendorf with Joey
Celestial Painting (2018–19). All images courtesy of Kong, 2019 © Art Basel. Auctioneer Oliver Barker Sime, NOISELESS (2019). Courtesy James Cohan Graham, courtesy Hans Neuendorf. artnet Price
Carole Server. at Sotheby’s, courtesy Sotheby’s. Installation shot Gallery. Tadesse Mesfin, Pillars of Life: Market Day Database in 1995 © artnet. Hans Neuendorf in 1995
at Sotheby’s auction, photo: rune hellestad/Getty (2018). Courtesy Addis Fine Art. Dawit Abebe, No. © artnet. artnet’s offices in 1995 © artnet. artnet’s
The Best–Seller Lists Images. Donald Trump and Alfred Taubman in 1989. 2 Background 35 (2016). Courtesy Kristin Hjel- offices in 2019 © artnet. The Woolworth Building via
Jonas Wood, Japanese Garden 3 (2019). Courtesy Photo: Ron Galella/Getty Images. legjerde. Atlantic Seaboard in Cape Town. Photo: Creative Commons. Hans Neuendorf and his son
Christie’s Images Ltd. Dana Schutz, Civil Planning Dan Grinwis/Creative Commons. Zeitz MOCAA, Jacob Pabst, courtesy Hans Neuendorf.
(2004). Courtesy Sotheby’s. Jeff Koons, Rabbit Why the Golden Age of Auction Guarantees is photo: Iwan Baan. Simphiwe Ndzube, Invitation to
(1986). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. KAWS, The Probably Over my Voyage #2 (2019). Courtesy Nicodim Gallery. Data Dive
KAWS Album (2005). Courtesy Sotheby’s. Robert Andy Warhol, Double Elvis [Ferus Type] (1963). Nicholas Hlobo, Ulwabelwano (2015). Courtesy Auctioneer Oliver Barker at Sotheby’s Contem-
Rauschenberg, Buffalo II (1964). Courtesy Christie’s Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. Peter Doig, The Lehmann Maupin. Zanele Muholi, Bester I, Mayotte porary Art Evening Sale, May 2019. Courtesy:
Images Ltd. Louise Bourgeois, Spider (1997). Architect’s Home in the Ravine (1991). Courtesy So- (2015). Courtesy Yancey Richardson. The Grand Sotheby’s.
Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. Cindy Sherman, theby’s. Amedeo Modigliani, Nu couché (sur le côté Mosque in Dakar. Photo: SEYLLOU/Getty Images.
Untitled Film Still #21 (1978). Courtesy Sotheby’s. gauche) (1917) . Courtesy Sotheby’s. Pablo Picasso, Soumbedioune Bay in Dakar. Photo: Sylvain Gran-
Helmut Newton, Sie Kommen, Paris (Dressed and Buste de femme de profil (Femme écrivant) (1932). dadam/Getty Images. Dakar’s shoreline. Photo:
Naked) (1981). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. Courtesy Sotheby’s. Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator Sylvain Grandadam/Getty Images. Omar Victor
Claude Monet, Meules (1891). Courtesy Sotheby’s. Mundi (ca. 1500). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. Diop, Omar Ibn Saïd 1770-1864 (2014). Courtesy
Francis Bacon, Study for a Head (1952). Courtesy MAGNIN-A. Omar Ba, Fruits, Masques, Insectes
Sotheby’s. Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Portrait Collector’s Roundtable (2018). Courtesy Galerie Templon. Soly Cissé,
of Muhammad Dervish Khan, Full-Length Holding All photos © David Owens Studio, 2019. Photos of Men and Lives V (2018). Courtesy the artist. Gerald
His Sword in a Landscape (1629). Courtesy Sothe- Antony Gormley’s “SIGHT” Courtesy NEON. Alicja Machona, 7 Colonial Powers (2018). Courtesy
by’s. Juan van der Hamen y León, Peaches, pears, Kwade, WeltenLinie (2017), from the Sandretto Re the artist. An aerial view of Lagos, Nigeria. Photo:
plums, peas and cherries in wicker baskets, figs, Rebaudengo Collection at Palazzo Biscari, Catania Michael Kraus/Getty Images. Emeka Ogboh, Spirit
plums and cherries on pewter plates, a bouquet of and Matter (2018). Courtesy Imane Farès. Gerald
tulips, blue and yellow irises, roses and other flowers Chukwuma, Google Map I (2017). Courtesy Gallery
in a Venetian crystal vase with terracotta and glass 1957. Otobong Kkanga, Transformation (2014).
vessels and stone fruit on a stone ledge (1629). Courtesy Mendes Wood DM. Marrakech, Morocco.
Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. Photo: Frédéric Soltan/Getty Images. the Museum

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